Delete a column from a delimited file in linux

Question

I have a file in the following format:

col1|col2|col3|col4
a|b|c|d
e|f||h
i|j|k|l

I would like to delete col3 (with the delimiter \"|\") fr

Answer 1

awk  'BEGIN{FS=OFS="|"}{print $1,$2,$4}'   file

should give you the output.

it is the very basic awk usage.

edit

you didn't mention 70 columns... :(

try this:

awk  -F'|' '{s="";for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){f=(NF==i)?"":FS;if(i!=3)s=s $i f;}print s}' file