Storing a field within a variable

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I need to figure out a way to to capture the contents of a field that is separated by a pipe sign.

Example Data:

 -100F| some other description
 -10C|  some description
 |  some description

As you can see, the length of the field on the left of the pipe can be any length and sometimes blank. I need to only capture the left of the pipe sign when there is data present with an 'F' or a 'C' present.

I have tried different things, but the variable length of the field is messing me up.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Chris

2 
awk -F"|" '{print $1}' infile
3 
nawk -F '|' '$1 {print $1}' myFile
4

Thank you guys for your fast reply! Just what I needed!