Calling rows and columns using a script

Question

I have a file as such
1 2 PX
0.446E+00 0.867E+00-0.123E+00-0.372E+00 0.285E+00-0.640E+00-0.163E+01-0.658E+00
-0.173E+00-0.845E+00-0.446E+00-0.366E+00-0.194E+01-0.194E+01-0.214E-01-0.400E-01
-0.151E+01-0.167E+01-0.173E+01-0.232E+01-0.173E+01-0.121E+01-0.234E+01-0.277E+01
-0.126E+01 0.940E+00 0.404E+01 0.659E+01 0.513E+01 0.198E+01 0.237E+01 0.518E+01
2 2 PX
0.315E+00 0.909E+00 0.104E+00-0.475E+00 0.141E+00-0.449E+00-0.156E+01-0.751E+00
0.553E-01-0.626E+00-0.640E+00-0.494E+00-0.189E+01-0.213E+01-0.125E+00 0.285E+00
-0.132E+01-0.180E+01-0.172E+01-0.232E+01-0.187E+01-0.103E+01-0.193E+01-0.268E+01
-0.130E+01 0.974E+00 0.370E+01 0.610E+01 0.516E+01 0.218E+01 0.232E+01 0.522E+01
3 2 PX
0.217E+00 0.116E+01 0.552E+00-0.490E+00-0.892E-01-0.303E+00-0.125E+01-0.512E+00
0.315E+00-0.672E+00-0.104E+01-0.559E+00-0.162E+01-0.222E+01-0.476E+00 0.166E+00
-0.131E+01-0.167E+01-0.142E+01-0.234E+01-0.225E+01-0.901E+00-0.123E+01-0.218E+01
-0.107E+01 0.994E+00 0.320E+01 0.551E+01 0.516E+01 0.225E+01 0.193E+01 0.502E+01
4 2 PX
0.110E+01 0.169E+01 0.538E+00-0.103E+01-0.487E+00 0.154E+00 0.134E+00 0.176E+01
0.325E+01 0.179E+01-0.308E+00-0.155E+01-0.361E+01-0.457E+01-0.233E+01-0.505E+00
-0.111E+01-0.130E+01-0.128E+01-0.288E+01-0.374E+01-0.274E+01-0.232E+01-0.160E+01
0.147E+01 0.459E+01 0.612E+01 0.683E+01 0.511E+01 0.116E+01 0.203E+00 0.348E+01
Where each section (1,2,3,4...) represents a different spring element.  The data is the force in the spring at time t reading from left to right and then on to the next row (i.e.  row1 col1 is time t(1), row1 col2 is time t(2), etc going across)
I would like to sum the forces in each spring at time t (ie call the force at time t(1) for all elements and add them together.  So that in the end I have the sum of the forces in all elements at each time t.  I would then like to find the time t with the greatest sum and return to a file the force at that time for each element.
Any help would be appreciated:)

Answer 1

And now let's see what every part does (before I forget) and you want this right?
Command 1:
's/.*\([0-9][0-9]*\).*[0-9][0-9]* PX.* <-- matches the PX lines. "....1-inf numbers (Remember)...1-inf numbers space PX ....."
/\nSPRING: \1/' < change to SPRING: the number above and an extra newline to make paragraphs which is useful for awk below.
's/\([^E:]\)\([ -]\)/ <-- match a space or minus and the character before it (see NB 4 above)
\1\n\2/g' <-- and put a new line between them. This way all the numbers are on a separate line
'BEGIN { RS="";FS="\n"} <-- RS="" will match paragraphs.
{for (i=2; i<NF+1; i++) { record[(i-1)]=record[(i-1)]+$i}} <-- Field 1 is SPRING: 9, otherwise record everything by adding up. awk can handle scientific notation.
There is a i-1 with record because time starts at 1 and i at 2. This could all make more sense without the spring line.
END {for (times in record) {print record[times] "\tt=" times}}'  <-- print the totals and the time that belongs with it.
Command 2:
grep 999t= <-- the output of the spring data will be of the form -999 just because it will be at the bottom of sort -rn.
$(sed -e 's/.*\([0-9][0-9]*\).*[0-9][0-9]* PX.*/\nSPRING: \1/' -e 's/\([^E:]\)\([ -]\)/\1\n\2/g' file | awk 'BEGIN { RS="";FS="\n"} {for (i=2; i<NF+1; i++) { record[(i-1)]=record[(i-1)]+$i}  <-- identical as above.
for (i=2; i<NF+1; i++) {data[(i-1)]=data[(i-1)] $i}} <-- this will append the actual string data as opposed to adding it up and losing the original data.
END {for (times in record) {print record[times] "\tt=" times} <-- identical
for (times in data) {print "-999t=" times " " data[times]}}'  <-- -999t= prepended because see above
| tee tempfile.txt  <-- tee copies the data because we will match the top total force with the data of the spring
| sort -nr | head -n 1 | cut -d= -f2  <-- gives the single highest force
) tempfile.txt  <-- Command becomes: grep '999t=high_number' tempfile
| sed 's/[^ ]* *//' <-- get rid of garbage at the start.