script using awk - products/sales

[ccfc1986]

Hey folks. I will e very upfront and say i am NOT a good UNIX script writer at ALL. I have to work on a project that will take information from 3 different date files (sales, associates, and products) and find the total sales per each associate. The files look something like this:

products: (product ID, name, price item)
% cat products
103:sway bar:49.99
101ropeller:104.99
104:fishing line:0.99
...
108:wheel:49.99
111:lock:31.00
102:trailer hitch:97.95

sales: (product ID,num. sold, date sale, associate ID)
% cat sales
110,1,01:02:2007,22
110,2,02:02:2007,23
109,1,03:03:2006,24
104,2,03:02:2007,24
...
104,2,05:03:2007,24
112,1,05:03:2007,23
104,9,05:03:2007,21

associates: (associate ID, name, salary, position)
% cat associates
21/John Doe/39000/Clerk
22/George Bush/99000/President
23/Susan Worker/44000/Manager
24/Fast Buck/21000/Stock Boy
25/Hillary Clinton/99000/Candidate
26/Dennis Miller/88000/Commedian

The output needs to come out something like:
$ ./report.sh
Name Position Sales Amount
========================================
Fast Buck Stock Boy 2712.77
George Bush President 1059.67
Susan Worker Manager 399.52
John Doe Clerk 284.74
Hillary Clinton Candidate 151.00
Dennis Miller Commedian 2.97

I have attempted something that looks like this: (note i get errors and it wont work, but hopefully you see what im getting at, and that i have attempted something!).

productSales=()
i=1
while (i < 10)
{
        count = 21
        if ($4 -lt count)
        ${productSales [$1]} += $2
        i++
}

I just dont understand how i can use awk to sort through 3 different files and then have some sort of connection between the three - say i WERE able to calculate something like:
employeeID 21
product#101 sold = 12
product#110 sold = 2

How could i get the information from the 'product' file so that i could then take
employeeID 21 sales (in some sort of variable, maybe array? empID[21]?)
and do prod#101 = 12
12 * price = X
prod#110 = 2
2 * price = X
total +=price

If someone could just throw me a snip of code/script that will get me going - i know exactly how i want to do it - but i cant seem to put together 2+3 to make 5!

I just started out with UNIX - i have a solid background in C++ so this is why a new language is tough not to confuse with the old stuff!

Any ideas? Help? Comments?

[RobinVossen]

Bash Is confusing for Solid C++ coders I have problems with it aswell.
a If uses [] instead of () in Bash and a while uses somehting like do and weird stuff. It might be easyer if you just write it in C++ And compile it for Linux. You also might want to Write it in Perl.

Sorry I cant be a real help.
I am Sure WJE_LJ (or whats his name, sorry I cant remember) can help you