UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I am making a script in bash shell and need to find out how many columns are in each row. I tried using awk '{print NF}' which will give me the number of columns for each row of the file all at once which is not what i want. I am trying to read each line individual from a file and want to know how many columns are just in that row and nothing else and when i loops around it read the next row and does the same thing.

cat $file1 | tr ' ' '\t' > seabass.txt
file1=seabass.txt
cat $file1 | while read -r line
do

#finds out how man fields there are
fields=`cat $file1 | awk '{print NF}'`

echo $fields


done


output:
4 5 5

need output to be:
4
#loop one time around
5
#loop ect

Thanks in advance

can you explain the below

I am trying to read each line individual from a file and want to know how many columns are just in that row and nothing else and when i loops around it read the next row and does the same thing

Please provide the sample input file and the output you needed.

Hi,

what you want to do exactly ? are you clear with your requirement ?

Cheers,
Ranga

Code:

$ awk '{print NF}' seabass.txt
14
13
10
12
11
7
16

---------- Post updated at 11:42 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:42 AM ----------

Code:

$ cat seabass.txt 
I am making a script in bash shell and need to find out how 
many columns are in each row. I tried using awk '{print NF}' which 
will give me the number of columns for each row
of the file all at once which is not what i want. 
I am trying to read each line individual from a file 
and want to know how many columns
are just in that row and nothing else and when i loops around it read the

it work when you enter it in the command line but when i put it in the script it will give me all the columns at once. I don't know why it does that.

Hi,

Try this,

Code:

#! /usr/bin/bash
file1="File1"
for i in `awk '{print NF;}' $file1`
do
   echo $i;
done

You have to put loop for that.

Cheers,
Ranga

Note the Double quotes

Code:

$ a=$(nawk '{print NF}' test.txt)

$ echo $a
14 13 10 12 11 7 16

$ echo "$a"
14
13
10
12
11
7
16