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Comment on Parsing JSON in Forty Lines of Awkparent

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No problem, there's \b.

  echo "one two three four five" | awk '{$3="\b"; print}'
Inserts the backspace character (^H), which you can then remove with [global] substitution:
  awk '{$3="\b"; sub(/\32\b/, ""); print}'
You can, of course, use an arbitrary sentinel value for the field to be deleted. Should work in gawk and BWK awk.
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