bash, find nearest next value, forward and backward

Question

I have a data.txt file

1    2     3    4      5       6        7   
cat data.txt
13 245 1323 10.1111 10.2222 60.1111 60.22222
13 133 2325 11.2222 11.333  61.         


        

Answer 1

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but this is what I came up with, not knowing awk:

#!/bin/sh

IFSBAK=$IFS
IFS=$'\n'

best=

for line in `cat $1`; do
    IFS=$' \t'
    arr=($line)


    num=${arr[5]}
    [[ -z $best ]] && best=$num

    if [ $(bc <<< "$num < 62.997") -eq 1 ]; then 
        if [  $(bc <<< "$best < $num") -eq 1 ]; then
            best=$num
        fi
    fi

    IFS=$'\n'
done

IFS=$IFSBAK
echo $best

If you want, you can add the column and the input value 62.997 as paramters, I didn't to demonstrate that it would look for specifically what you want.

Edited to remove assumption that file is sorted.