UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

What is the command to count lines in a files, but ignore blank lines and commented lines?

I have a file with 4 sections in it, and I want each section to be counted, not including the blank lines and comments... and then totalled at the end.

Here is an example of what I would like my output to look like:

##comment##
line1
line2
line3
line4
line5
line6

6 lines

##comment##
line7
line8
line9
line10
line11
line12
line13
line14
line15
line16
line17

11 lines

##comment##
line18
line19
line20
line21
line22

5 lines

##comment##
line23
line24
line25
line26
line27
line28
line29
line30
line31
line32
line33
line34
line35

13 lines

35 total lines

Thank you in advance, for your help!

Code:

awk '!/^#/ && !/^$/{c++}END{print c}' "file"

to extend that somewhat(untested):

Code:

awk '!/^[ \t]*(#|$)/ {c++; ct++} /#/ && c { printf "%s\n\n\n%s", c, $0; c=0} END { print ct}' file

much simpler ! : )

Code:

egrep -cv '#|^$' fielname

Hi, kthatch.

You did an excellent job of telling us how the output should look.

However, you did not specify how the sections are separated from each other, nor what you consider a comment - a string at the beginning of a line, a string anyplace in a line, etc.

There is a standard utility nl which knows about sections:
There is also csplit, which can split a file into pieces, based on the occurrence of a regular expression.

Many of the solutions offered are probably adaptable to whatever your file format is, but you may get more on-point suggestions if you are more precise ... cheers, drl

I tried each of these suggestions and neither worked.

Results:

#egrep -cv '#|^$' active_servers
this displayed the total but on screen only, not in the file

#awk '!/^#/ && !/^$/{c++}END{print c}' active_servers
same as above

#awk '!/^[ \t]*(#|$)/ {c++; ct++} /#/ && c { printf "%s\n\n\n%s", c, $0; c=0} END { print ct}' active_servers
awk: syntax error near line 1
awk: bailing out near line 1

To provide more detail, I have a script that produces the output above (in my original post) to a file - less the totals that I am seeking help with. When I refer to comments, I mean lines that are preceded with ## and the sections are separated with a blank line as a result of this "sed '/this/{x;p;x;}'" in my script.

Thanks again! More suggestions would be welcome!

If you had rather need the output on file, redirect that.

Code:

egrep -cv '#|^$' active_servers > somefilename