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 "|") from the header and the data as well. Can this be done using awk/sed?

Plese NOTE that the data in col3 maybe empty (row 2).

The output should be:

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

Answer 1

You could simply use cut.

cut -d'|' -f1-2,4- file

Answer 2

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed 's/[^|]*|//3' file