I have various text files I need to modify
test.xyz|test3.abc|test5232.lop|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat|... I'm trying to automate the process of removing "test5232.lop", including the proceeding the pipe, like this:
test.xyz|test3.abc|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat|... Without the need to generate a temp file if possible
This looks like a job for cut. Tell it the delimiter is |, that we want to specify fields to drop, not fields to keep (--complement) and that the we want to select field 3 (to drop in this case).
Code:
cut -d '|' --complement -f 3 Test:
$ echo 'test.xyz|test3.abc|test5232.lop|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat|x' | cut -d '|' --complement -f 3 test.xyz|test3.abc|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat|x 
--complement option. Notably, this is GNU-specific. sed answer, because if just want to remove a specific string sed is super easy. cut doesn't support --complement you can use a field list instead: cut -d '|' -f 1-2,4- Just use Sed:
sed 's/|test5232\.lop//' file.txt Original answer, before request was clarified:
sed 's/|[^|]*//2' file.txt If you know that all lines have at least three | symbols, you can use the more intuitive form:
sed 's/[^|]*|//3' file.txt 
-i option if your Sed supports it. (Check the man page for whether it requires an argument or not; that depends on what implementation you use.) To replace the 3rd field (where a "field" is "anything except a pipe, zero or more times, followed by a pipe") with nothing:
awk '{$0=gensub(/[^|]*\|/, "", 3); print $0}' input Apparently you want to remove "test5232.lop" anywhere in the line:
sed -i 's/|test5232\.lop//' input (although any solution, including sed -i creates a temporary file)
ed does not create a temporary file. gnu.org/software/ed/manual/ed_manual.html It can be obtuse to use, but when it comes to things like editing files in directories you can't execute, it's better to be obtuse and functional ^-^ perl -F'[|]' -pale '$_ = join "|", grep $_ ne "test5232.lop", @F' yourfile perl -F'[|]' -pale '1 while s/(^|\|)\Ktest5232\.lop(\||$)//g' yourfile sed -e ' :clip s/[|]test5232\.lop[|]/|/ tclip s/^test5232\.lop[|]// s/[|]test5232\.lop$// s/^test5232\.lop$// ' yourfile Check also this awk simple solution. Will remove the string no matter where it is and should be portable:
$ a="test.xyz|test3.abc|test5232.lop|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat" $ awk -F"test5232.lop." '{printf("%s%s\n",$1,$2)}' <<<"$a" test.xyz|test3.abc|filename.test|file.text|qwerty.bat About your request for in-place editing , GNU AWK version > 4.1 also can make inplace edits according to gawk manual:
awk -i inplace -v INPLACE_SUFFIX=.bak '{...}' But in any case, neither awk nor sed nor perl can achieve a real inplace editing. GNU sed Info Pages clarify this issue for us:
'-i[SUFFIX]' '--in-place[=SUFFIX]' This option specifies that files are to be edited in-place. GNU 'sed' does this by creating a temporary file and sending output to this file rather than to the standard output.(1). Meaning that you can use any solution in-here by appending at the end something like this:
awk/sed/perl/whatever oldfile >tmpfile && mvtmpfile oldfile && rm -f tmpfile ed, rather than sed can be used in-place, it's just... far more obtuse to use (must consult manual a lot), unless you actually take some time to run it interactively to figure out how the heck it works. gnu.org/software/ed/manual/ed_manual.html