Hello nancy,
If I understand your question, you have a file with
x | y | z
in them and want
x # y # z
try the command
sed 's/|/#/g' infile > outfile
an explanation
sed is the command
the ' ' are to isolate the sed command from the shell
s is the switch command
/| is what to search for
/# is what to replace with
/g tells sed to replace all |'s found on each line not just
the first one
infile is you x | y | z file
sed will write to standard output unless it is redirected
let me know if you have any questions
oops I just saw johnson's e-mail with a different approach
why awk when you can sed ???