Ok I got it,but when i ran the script with the changed name of the input file it gave me an error

./script
./script[82]: item: bad number

The change i did in the script is only this

exec < testingdata

The requiremnt is a bot diffrent,i am mentioning the points for you..

# scan the 27 data items to make sure they are numbers
# and remove leading zeros while we are at it

This req is like this---

1... We are not bothered about the leading zeroes ie 01,02,03-------------- In my requirement they all are valid numbers,we should ignore the zeroes only ie 00 where ever they are,they are just for filling purpose dont have any meaning.

2..# note each column with a non-zero--

here leading zero is fine ie 01,02,03----- they are fine.Here i need to check that the colums must have a valid number and if more than that numbers are there then it should be in ascending order,if not the data is ascending order in column it should print that data as an error.

3. There should be 27 entries in a row that is fine but in that there must be exactly 15 numbers leaving all 00.

Your apporoach to the requirement is very correct but just some changes.Rest of the code is fullfilling the requirement.I am new to shell script.

Thanks
Namish