Shell Programming and Scripting

$
$ cat f36
12345|abcd|6666|XYZ
234|defghij|77777|CYXP
456|mnopqr|8888|TYSICWROKM
$
$
$ perl -F"\|" -lane 'if ($. == 1) {@x = map {length} @F}
                     else {@x = map {length($F[$_]) > $x[$_] ? length($F[$_]) : $x[$_]} (0..$#F)}
                     END {
                       foreach $i (0..$#x) {print "Max length of variable ",($i+1)," is $x[$i]"}
                     }' f36
Max length of variable 1 is 5
Max length of variable 2 is 7
Max length of variable 3 is 5
Max length of variable 4 is 10
$
$

awk -F\| '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){l=length($i); if (l>L[i])L[i]=l}} END{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) print i,L[i]}' infile