Shell Programming and Scripting

#!/bin/bash

FIELDS=4

IFS="|"
QUIT=0

while [ "$QUIT" -eq 0 ]
do
        ARR=()

        for ((N=0; N<FIELDS; N++))
        do
                if ! read -d '|' ARR[$N]
                then
                        QUIT=1
                        break;
                fi
        done
        [ ! -z "${ARR[0]}" ] && echo "${ARR[*]}"
done < infile > outfile

#!/bin/bash

while read -d "|" j; do
    s="$s$j|"; ((i++))
    if ((i%4==0)); then
        echo "${s%|}"
        i=0; s=''
    fi
done < 'yourdatafile'
echo "$s$j"

exit 0

./script > 'anotherfile'