$ cat tri.txt aaa|1234||2bc||rahul|tamilnadu bba|2234||b4c||bajaj|tamilnadu $ awk 'BEGIN{OFS=FS="|"}{ for(k=0;k<=NF;k++) if ( $k == "" ) $k="NULL" print $0}' tri.txt aaa|1234|NULL|2bc|NULL|rahul|tamilnadu bba|2234|NULL|b4c|NULL|bajaj|tamilnadu