Remove spaces in file through shell script

Solution 1:

You may use this sed:

sed -E 's/^[[:blank:]]+|[[:blank:]]*(\|)[[:blank:]]*|[[:blank:]]+$/\1/g' file

Apple|Banana|I want to eat banana|Carrot

Explanation:

• ^[[:blank:]]+: Match 1 or more whitespaces after start
• |: OR
• [[:blank:]]*(\|)[[:blank:]]*: Match 0 or more whitespaces before and after a | and capture | in group #1
• |: OR
• [[:blank:]]+$: Match 1 or more whitespaces before end
• Replacement is a \1` that puts captured value of group #1 in replacement

An awk solution:

awk -F '[[:blank:]]*\\|[[:blank:]]*' -v OFS='|' '{
   gsub(/^[[:blank:]]+|[[:blank:]]+$/, ""); $1=$1} 1' file

Apple|Banana|I want to eat banana|Carrot