Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: wc -c (number of characters)
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers wc -c (number of characters) Post 302165516 by vino on Friday 8th of February 2008 04:15:12 AM
Old 02-08-2008
Quote:
Originally Posted by metalwarrior
for some reason word count always counts one extra character.
for example,
echo 11 | wc -c
counts 3 characters instead of 2
anyone know how to get the exact number of characters?
There is also the newline character which you dont see.

Code:
[/tmp]$ echo "11" | od -a
0000000   1   1  nl
0000003
[/tmp]$ echo -n "11" | od -a
0000000   1   1
0000002
[/tmp]$ echo -n "11" | wc -c
2

 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

number of escape characters?

Hi, I am trying to execute the following command from a batch script, but no matter how many escape characters I put in it doesn't execute properly. It works fine from the command line with quotes around the -exec part. #!/bin/sh /usr/local/bin/sudo /usr/atria/bin/cleartool setview -exec... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: Sebarry
0 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

split based on the number of characters

Hello, if i have file like this: 010000890306932455804 05306977653873 0520080417010520ISMS SMT ZZZZZZZZZZZZZOC30693599000 30971360000 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ202011302942311 010000890306946317387 05306977313623 0520080417010520ISMS SMT... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: chriss_58
6 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Maximum number of characters in a line.

Hi, Could any one please let me know what is the maximum number of characters that will fit into a single line of a flat file on a unix. Thanks. (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Shivdatta
1 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

number of characters in a string

Hi there, I have some user input in a variable called $VAR, and i need to ensure that the string is 5 or less characters .... does anybody know how i can count the characters in the variables ? any help would be great, cheers (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: rethink
2 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

reducing the number of characters in a column

Hi, I would like to take the first column of a bunch of lines and take only the 6th through 15th characters. The first column are not regular. gbAY277147.1Ptv3.T1469 CTTGAACAT gbAY277149.1Ptro3.T1469 CTTGAACAT gbAY287891.1Hs3.T1469 CTTGAACATTTGC into 7147.1Ptv3 CTTGAACAT... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: mikey11415
4 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

AWK - number of specified characters in a string

Hello, I'm new to using AWK and would be grateful for some basic advice to get me started. I have a file consisting of 10 fields. Initially I wish to calculate the number of . , ~ and ^ characters in the 9th field ($9) of each line. This particular string also contains alphabetical... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: Olly
6 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Count number of characters in particular column

Hi i have data like abchd 124 ldskc aattggcc each separated by tab space i want to count number of characters in 4th column and print it in new column with tabspace for every line can anyone help me how to do it. Thanks. (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: bhargavpbk88
3 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Counting the number of characters

Hi all, Can someone help me in getting the following o/p I/p:... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: Sri3001
7 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to truncate a string to x number characters?

Hello: I have a large file which contains lines like the following: 1/t123ab, &Xx:1:1234:12345:123456@ABCDEFG... at -$100.00% /t is a tab, spaces are as indicated the string "&Xx:1:1234:12345:123456$ABCDEFG..." has a slightly variable number of numbers and letters, but it always starts... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: Tectona
9 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to count number of characters of wc -l output?

I want count number of characters / find the length of the 'wc -l' output This is the command bash-3.2$ gzcat /home/sid/file1.dat |wc -l 830752 So final out I want is 6 i.e lenght of 830752 I tried with awk bash-3.2$ gzcat /home/sid/file1.dat |wc -l | awk '{print length ($0)... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: sidnow
3 Replies
wc(1)							      General Commands Manual							     wc(1)

NAME
wc - count words, lines, and bytes or characters in a file SYNOPSIS
[file]... DESCRIPTION
The command counts lines, words, and bytes or characters in the named files, or in the standard input if no file names are specified. It also keeps a total count for all named files. A word is a string of characters delimited by spaces, tabs, or newlines. Options recognizes the following options: Report the number of bytes in each input file. Report the number of newline characters in each input file. Report the number of characters in each input file. Report the number of words in each input file. The and options are mutually exclusive. Otherwise, the and or options can be used in any combination to specify that a subset of lines, words, and bytes or characters are to be reported. When any option is specified, reports only the information requested. If no option is specified, the default output is When a file is specified on the command line, its name is printed along with the counts. Standard Output By default, the standard output contains an entry for each input file in the form: newlines words bytes file If the option is specified, the number of characters replaces the bytes field in this format. If any option is specified, the fields for the unspecified options are omitted. If no file operand is specified, neither the file name nor the preceding blank character is written. If more than one file operand is specified, an additional line is written at the end of the output, of the same format as the other lines, except that the word (in the POSIX locale) is written instead of a file name and the total of each column is written as appropriate. Under UNIX Standard environment, a word is a string of characters delimited by spaces, tabs, newline, carriage-return, vertical tab, or form-feed. RETURN VALUE
exits with one of the following values: Successful completion. An error occurred. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
For information about the UNIX Standard environment, see standards(5). Environment Variables determines the range of graphics and space characters, and the interpretation of text as single- and/or multibyte characters. determines the language in which messages are displayed. If or is not specified in the environment or is null, they default to the value of If is not specified or is null, it defaults to (see lang(5)). If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, they all default to See environ(5). International Code Set Support Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported. with a newline character, the count will be off by one. WARNINGS
The command counts the number of newlines to determine the line count. If a text file has a final line that is not terminated with a new- line character, the count will be off by one. EXAMPLES
Print the number of words and characters in The following is printed when the above command is executed: where words is the number of words and chars is the number of characters in SEE ALSO
standards(5). STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
wc(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:54 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy