Find number, and remove adjacent characters equal to this number
Taking the question literally, this removes the next n characters from fields 2 and 4 for any n embedded in the field.
perl -lane 'for $i (1, 3) {@nums = $F[$i] =~ /(\d+)/g; for $num (@nums) {$F[$i] =~ s/$num.{$num}//}}; print join("\t", @F)'The other answers remove the number and all the characters that follow that are the same.
To illustrate the difference between my answer and the others, use the following input:
6 ccg8qqqqqqqqqqqqggg 10 ccccg3qqqqqqqqqqqgggggMy version outputs this:
6 ccgqqqqggg 10 ccccgqqqqqqqqgggggwhile theirs output this:
6 ccgggg 10 ccccgggggg