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

Another awk solution could be useful if you have many columns

awk -F'|'  '{$3="";$0=$0;$3=$3}1' FPAT='[^|]+' OFS='|' file