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number of chars

 
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# 1  
Old 07-04-2012
number of chars
I am curious why the below returns 4 instead of 3
Code:
wc -c <<<aaa

Whereas
Code:
a=aaa;echo ${#a}

returns 3.
How to get 3 using here -string operator in the above scenario

Thanks
# 2  
Old 07-04-2012
What you're asking cannot be done, as far as I know. bash (I'm assuming that's what you're using) appends a newline at the end of the here-string, even when the command is terminated with a semicolon. I presume this is to maintain compatibility between a here-string and a here-document of identical content.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the here-string is implemented with a here-document.

Regards,
Alister
Last edited by alister; 07-04-2012 at 03:41 PM..
# 3  
Old 07-04-2012
Further to allister, if the here string in your Shell (whatever that is) had not appended a linefeed (thereby making the 4th character) the "wc" command would have seen nothing because it expects correctly formatted text files.

If you needed the answer three, you would have to subtract one from the result to eliminate count for the linefeed character.
 
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