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Record length check fails due to '\' character

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# 1  
Old 03-27-2013
Record length check fails due to '\' character
When I check the length for the records in the file, it does not give me the correct value. I used wc -l command.

Code:
Example records:

abcdefghij
abcd\efghij
abcdefghi

Expected output is:
10
11
9

Code:
But the output returned is 
10
10
9

Please help me on this issue.
# 2  
Old 03-27-2013
When you run wc -l, it gives you the number of lines in the file, not the record lengths. What other command did you use to get the record lengths?

---------- Post updated at 10:25 ---------- Previous update was at 10:24 ----------

One way to get the record lengths would be

Code:
$ awk '{ print length($0) }' inputfile
10
11
9

which gives you the desired output.
# 3  
Old 03-27-2013
I don't think anything fails because of \ character.

You want to use wc -c to count the number of characters in a record. wc -l counts the number of records (number of lines).
Code:
$ cat temp.x
abcdefghij
abcd\efghij
abcdefghij
$ wc -l temp.x
3 temp.x

Code:
$ cat temp.x
abcdefghij
$ wc -c temp.x
11 temp.x

Code:
$ cat temp.x
abcd\efghij
$ wc -c temp.x
12 temp.x

Keep in mind that if just one character on the line, the result of wc -c is still more than one, because it counts the end of line marker.

Hope this helps.
# 4  
Old 03-27-2013
Sorry i used wc -c but if the record contains \ it gives 1 less than the actual record length.
# 5  
Old 03-27-2013
Sorry, wc -c doesn't print the record lengths either, it prints the file size in bytes.

Anyway, the awk-approach should solve your problem.
# 6  
Old 03-27-2013
Hi,
how do you pass the records to wc? Btw. wc -l counts lines...
I think the \e sequence is translated by something else before wc sees it.
Code:
$ echo -ne 'abcd\efghij' |wc -m
10
$ echo -n 'abcd\efghij' |wc -m
11

In the first example echo interpretes the backslash escapes, in the second it does not.
# 7  
Old 03-27-2013
I pass a file as Input, read line by line and check for the length of a record using
HTML Code:
wc -c
command.
HTML Code:
ex: 250
.

If the record is less than the given length the script fails.

If all the records in the file is of same length then my input file is moved to a required path.

My file as some thousands of records.
Code:
If any record contains \ character then wc -c displays the count 1 less 

	
HTML Code:

	
ex 249




 and my script fails

Code:
Note:
I should not replace the \ character.
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