How to count words in a line

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3















I have a text file called "shoplist.txt" which one have:



drinks water cola fanta
fruit banana orange


And I want to get how many items per line I have. I'm able to extract drinks and fruit with function "cut" but how can I count how many words I have in each line?



My actually code is:



fileLine=`cat file.txt`
#Here I get each line saving it to fileLine
for line in $fileLine; do
 echo
((aux++))
done


But this code dosen't work because it save to %fileLine each work (drinks, then water,then cola,...)



How can I get the first line and then count the words on that line?






bash shell-script







share|improve this question
























  • wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

    – Puspharaj Selvaraj
    Mar 5 at 5:31











  • Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

    – Bodo
    Mar 5 at 11:09















3















I have a text file called "shoplist.txt" which one have:



drinks water cola fanta
fruit banana orange


And I want to get how many items per line I have. I'm able to extract drinks and fruit with function "cut" but how can I count how many words I have in each line?



My actually code is:



fileLine=`cat file.txt`
#Here I get each line saving it to fileLine
for line in $fileLine; do
 echo
((aux++))
done


But this code dosen't work because it save to %fileLine each work (drinks, then water,then cola,...)



How can I get the first line and then count the words on that line?






bash shell-script







share|improve this question
























  • wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

    – Puspharaj Selvaraj
    Mar 5 at 5:31











  • Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

    – Bodo
    Mar 5 at 11:09













3












3








3








I have a text file called "shoplist.txt" which one have:



drinks water cola fanta
fruit banana orange


And I want to get how many items per line I have. I'm able to extract drinks and fruit with function "cut" but how can I count how many words I have in each line?



My actually code is:



fileLine=`cat file.txt`
#Here I get each line saving it to fileLine
for line in $fileLine; do
 echo
((aux++))
done


But this code dosen't work because it save to %fileLine each work (drinks, then water,then cola,...)



How can I get the first line and then count the words on that line?






bash shell-script







share|improve this question
















I have a text file called "shoplist.txt" which one have:



drinks water cola fanta
fruit banana orange


And I want to get how many items per line I have. I'm able to extract drinks and fruit with function "cut" but how can I count how many words I have in each line?



My actually code is:



fileLine=`cat file.txt`
#Here I get each line saving it to fileLine
for line in $fileLine; do
 echo
((aux++))
done


But this code dosen't work because it save to %fileLine each work (drinks, then water,then cola,...)



How can I get the first line and then count the words on that line?






bash shell-script




bash shell-script






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Mar 4 at 18:34









Rui F Ribeiro

41.8k1483142




41.8k1483142










asked Mar 4 at 18:26









Multi17Multi17

202




202












  • wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

    – Puspharaj Selvaraj
    Mar 5 at 5:31











  • Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

    – Bodo
    Mar 5 at 11:09

















  • wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

    – Puspharaj Selvaraj
    Mar 5 at 5:31











  • Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

    – Bodo
    Mar 5 at 11:09
















wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

– Puspharaj Selvaraj
Mar 5 at 5:31





wc would do the necessary job in a loop.

– Puspharaj Selvaraj
Mar 5 at 5:31













Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

– Bodo
Mar 5 at 11:09





Is the output of the awk script in the answer what you want to have? If not, what exactly do you want to get?

– Bodo
Mar 5 at 11:09










2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















14














If you can use awk, NF is the number of fields in the current line (by default, a field is a word delimited by any amount of whitespace).



Use



awk ' print NF, $0 ' inputfile


With your sample input, this will print



4 drinks water cola fanta
3 fruit banana orange





share|improve this answer

























  • The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

    – Isaac
    Mar 5 at 4:14











  • @Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

    – Cbhihe
    Mar 5 at 11:05












  • Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25


















3














In Bash and wc:



IFS=$'n'
while read line; do
 wc -w <<< "$line"
done < file.txt


wc counts lines, words, bytes in files. With a shell loop you can make it count words in a line.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25











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2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









14














If you can use awk, NF is the number of fields in the current line (by default, a field is a word delimited by any amount of whitespace).



Use



awk ' print NF, $0 ' inputfile


With your sample input, this will print



4 drinks water cola fanta
3 fruit banana orange





share|improve this answer

























  • The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

    – Isaac
    Mar 5 at 4:14











  • @Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

    – Cbhihe
    Mar 5 at 11:05












  • Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25















14














If you can use awk, NF is the number of fields in the current line (by default, a field is a word delimited by any amount of whitespace).



Use



awk ' print NF, $0 ' inputfile


With your sample input, this will print



4 drinks water cola fanta
3 fruit banana orange





share|improve this answer

























  • The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

    – Isaac
    Mar 5 at 4:14











  • @Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

    – Cbhihe
    Mar 5 at 11:05












  • Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25













14












14








14







If you can use awk, NF is the number of fields in the current line (by default, a field is a word delimited by any amount of whitespace).



Use



awk ' print NF, $0 ' inputfile


With your sample input, this will print



4 drinks water cola fanta
3 fruit banana orange





share|improve this answer















If you can use awk, NF is the number of fields in the current line (by default, a field is a word delimited by any amount of whitespace).



Use



awk ' print NF, $0 ' inputfile


With your sample input, this will print



4 drinks water cola fanta
3 fruit banana orange






share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited Mar 4 at 22:12









Kusalananda♦

139k17259430




139k17259430










answered Mar 4 at 18:31









BodoBodo

2,271618




2,271618












  • The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

    – Isaac
    Mar 5 at 4:14











  • @Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

    – Cbhihe
    Mar 5 at 11:05












  • Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25

















  • The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

    – Isaac
    Mar 5 at 4:14











  • @Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

    – Cbhihe
    Mar 5 at 11:05












  • Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25
















The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

– Isaac
Mar 5 at 4:14





The more cryptic awk '$0=NF" "$0' inputfile is a shorter solution.

– Isaac
Mar 5 at 4:14













@Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

– Cbhihe
Mar 5 at 11:05






@Isaac: Really ? Is shorter better ? In this specific case Bodo's answer is just the answer to OP, ... and [s]he beat us all to it. :-[

– Cbhihe
Mar 5 at 11:05














Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

– Multi17
Mar 5 at 17:25





Thanks everyone for their advices. I didn't know about awk, thanks!

– Multi17
Mar 5 at 17:25













3














In Bash and wc:



IFS=$'n'
while read line; do
 wc -w <<< "$line"
done < file.txt


wc counts lines, words, bytes in files. With a shell loop you can make it count words in a line.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25















3














In Bash and wc:



IFS=$'n'
while read line; do
 wc -w <<< "$line"
done < file.txt


wc counts lines, words, bytes in files. With a shell loop you can make it count words in a line.






share|improve this answer

























  • Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25













3












3








3







In Bash and wc:



IFS=$'n'
while read line; do
 wc -w <<< "$line"
done < file.txt


wc counts lines, words, bytes in files. With a shell loop you can make it count words in a line.






share|improve this answer















In Bash and wc:



IFS=$'n'
while read line; do
 wc -w <<< "$line"
done < file.txt


wc counts lines, words, bytes in files. With a shell loop you can make it count words in a line.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited Mar 4 at 22:08

























answered Mar 4 at 19:56









sborskysborsky

811611




811611












  • Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25

















  • Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

    – Multi17
    Mar 5 at 17:25
















Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

– Multi17
Mar 5 at 17:25





Thanks, I was aware about WC -l for lines but not for words, thanks!

– Multi17
Mar 5 at 17:25

















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