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Word Count (WC) command

 
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# 1  
Old 01-16-2009
Network Word Count (WC) command
I have created a file "pat".This file contains the text "abcdefghi". Now i want to count the characters in this file "pat". I gave wc -c | pat and it returns me exact count "9". Now when i tried like "echo pat | wc -m" It returns '4'. as for as i understand this command "echo pat | wc -m" should work similiar to "wc -m". I might be wrong. Can some one please clarify my doubt?
# 2  
Old 01-16-2009
Code:
echo pat | wc -m

This counts the string "pat", why its give 4 and not 3 im not sure.

Code:
cat pat | wc -m

would count the chars in the file pat, gives 10 on my pc
# 3  
Old 01-16-2009
echo pat | wc -m returns 4 instead 3. Can you please explain how?
# 4  
Old 01-16-2009
The use of cat is redundant, this is sufficient:

Code:
wc -m < pat

Regards
# 5  
Old 01-16-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdali_vl
echo pat | wc -m returns 4 instead 3. Can you please explain how?

echo pat
outputs "p", then "a", then "t", and finally it outputs a newline character.
# 6  
Old 01-16-2009
Code:
The echo has added a linefeed character which is included in the count.
Here "fgh" is just a text string not the name of a file.

echo "fgh" | wc -l

4

If you use echo without the linefeed character the count goes down.

echo "fgh\c" | wc -l

3


Where your file is called "pat" and contains a 9 character string "abcdefghi" ending with a linefeed (i.e. a normal text file record).

cat pat | wc -c

10

If the file called "pat" contains two records each of which is the 9 character string "abcdefghi" :

cat pat | wc -c

20

# 7  
Old 01-16-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdali_vl
echo pat | wc -m returns 4 instead 3. Can you please explain how?
Echo prints a newline character after the line, to avoid this you can use the -n option:

Code:
echo -n "pat" | wc -m

Regards
 
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