Shell Programming and Scripting

hi there,

i need to validate the column heading in a csv file and i was considering using AWK (not sure if best choice as i am a newbie to UNIX). if the heading adheres to the correct names then i process the file via another script (just a bulk load).

so far my reading has gotten me to the point of something along the lines of this...

Code:

awk 'BEGIN {FS = ","}
if ($1 == "col1"){
 #check col2 
...
#check final column.
 
}'
is there a away i could verify the comple line
such as 
if(Record == "col1,col2col3"){
   #proceed
}
otherwise fail.

what do i use to refer to the entire record (line) vs a field?
and whats the best approach to exit the awk script if it fails?

thanks and sorry, just really green with awk

In awk, $0 refers to the entire line.

You could also do it in the shell itself:

Code:

read line < "$file"
if [ "$line" != col1,col2,col3 ]
then
   printf "Problem: %s\n" "$line"
   exit 1
fi
## rest of script here

So you need check each line in file has special strings, or not?

Code:

awk '{if ($0~/col1,col2col3/) { #proceed} else {print "fail."}}'  infile