$ record 3 < inventory
Item    Amount  Cost    Value   Description
----    ------  ----    -----   --------------
   3         5    80      400   clamps

$ record 2 6 < inventory
Item	Amount	Cost	Value	Description
----	------	----	-----	--------------
2	100	5	500	test tubes
3	5	80	400	clamps
4	23	19	437	plates
5	9	24	2376	cleaning cloth
6	89	147	13083	bunsen burners

The following shell script uses record and read to find specific values in a table. The read command uses the head line of inventory to assign values to each column name.

$ cat describe
: describe - gives the description for an item in inventory
USAGE='usage: describe Item < table'

record $1 < inventory |
(       read HEAD
        read DASH
        read $HEAD
        echo "Item $Item is $Description"
)
$ describe 1 < inventory
Item 1 is rubber gloves