Basic Question on WC

[uform]

Prompt>echo 'hello' | wc -c
6
Prompt>echo 'hello' | wc -m
6
Prompt>echo 'test' | wc -m
5
Prompt>echo test | wc -m
5
Prompt>echo test|wc -m
5
Prompt>echo test|wc -C
5

i'm expecting 5 characters for hello and 4 for test !!! what am i missing ?

[melvyn burnard]

There is the additional carriage return character that gets counted as far as I recall

[Peter Godron]

Hi,
man wc
"A word is a string of characters delimited by spaces, tabs, or newlines."

It the newline char at the end:
echo hello | wc -l
1

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

The newline character is counted. You can see visually what Melvyn refers to by doing:

# echo hello|cat -etv

Regards!

...JRF...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Here is an alternative method:

expr length $(echo "hello")

[Peter Nikitka · Accepted solution]

Hi,

if you just need the length of a string:

a=hello
print ${#a}

No additional newline needs to be considered.

mfG Peter

[uform]

ok thanks all.

[Jonathan Fife]

You could also put a \c at the end of the echo to supress the newline:

fifejj:/> echo "test\c" | wc -m
4
fifejj:/> echo "hello\c" | wc -m
5
fifejj:/> mystring=hello
fifejj:/> echo "${mystring}\c" | wc -m
5

[Sandman!]

wc is also counting the newline character written as \n...for example:

# echo hello | od -c
# echo test | od -c

cheers!

[spex]

# echo 'hello' | awk '{print length}'
5