Yes I was getting syntax issues which as you mentioned the error I should have posted here but I was trying my code on ideone.com which was not printing where the error is it was not me being lazy.I am using bash shell which is by default on the mentioned website.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/sh
col="c1,c3"   
idx=   
sum=0         
{
IFS=, read -ra values <<< "$col" #Here I am trying to read column names from col variavble
for v in "${values[@]}"# looping all the column names i passed in the col variable
do
  for i in ${v//,/ } do# Here since the @ in the above for loop has values like c1,c3 comma seperated i was trying to read one by one
     while IFS=, read -r -a line; do# now read all the values under the column (first c1 then c3)
     sum=$(( sum + ${line[$i]} $sum the values under columns passed
	 echo $sum
	 done
  done
done
}<testfile

Now yes I know my syntax is wrong just was not getting error message but also I am pretty new to programming(Bad defense)

Yes I haven't figured that part yet sorry my bad i should have been more precise.

I wasn't trying to say RudiC code is wrong. I was getting the above mentioned output on ideone.com now since i am at work i will try it on my terminal and yes MCOL i did try to print it by saying

Code:

print $0,MCOL

or

Code:

print $0,MCOL_sum

instead of

Code:

print $0,MCOL[i]

. The reason I did not ask clarification on his code yet is i am still trying to read through his code and once i do all my research i can come back with answers. Also i was trying to write the same code in my own way which obviously failed miserably.


Finally Thanks for everything I will keep this feedback in mind in my future posts