I have to write a script that takes a sentence and prints the word count, character count (excluding the spaces), length of each word and the length. I know that there exist wc -m
to counter number of characters in the word, but how to make use of it in script?
#!/bin/bash
mystring="one two three test five"
maxlen=0;
for token in $mystring; do
echo -n "$token: ";
echo -n $token | wc -m;
if [ ${#token} -gt $maxlen ]; then
maxlen=${#token}; fi;
done
echo "--------------------------";
echo -n "Total words: ";
echo "$mystring" | wc -w;
echo -n "Total chars: ";
echo "$mystring" | wc -m;
echo -n "Max length: ";
echo $maxlen
riffing on Jaypal Singh's answer:
jcomeau@intrepid:~$ mystring="one two three four five"
jcomeau@intrepid:~$ echo "string length: ${#mystring}"
string length: 23
jcomeau@intrepid:~$ echo -n "lengths of words: "; i=0; for token in $mystring; do echo -n "${#token} "; i=$((i+1)); done; echo; echo "word count: $i"
lengths of words: 3 3 5 4 4
word count: 5
jcomeau@intrepid:~$ echo -n "maximum string length: "; maxlen=0; for token in $mystring; do if [ ${#token} -gt $maxlen ]; then maxlen=${#token}; fi; done; echo $maxlen
maximum string length: 5
echo $mystring | wc -w
or
echo $mystring | wc --words
will do a word count for you.
You can pipe each word to wc:
echo $token | wc -m
to store the result in a variable:
mycount=`echo $token | wc -m`
echo $mycount
to add to the total as you go word by word, do math with this syntax:
total=0
#start of your loop
total=$((total+mycount))
#end of your loop
echo $total
string="i am a string"
n=$(echo $string | wc -w )
echo $n
4
The value of n can be used as an integer in expressions
eg.
echo $((n+1))
5
#!/bin/bash
mystring="one two three test five"
for token in $mystring; do
echo -n "$token: ";
echo -n $token | wc -m;
done
echo "--------------------------";
echo -n "Total words: ";
echo "$mystring" | wc -w;
echo -n "Total chars: ";
echo "$mystring" | wc -m;
You are very close. In bash you can use #
to get the length of your variable.
Also, if you want to use bash
interpreter use bash
instead of sh
and the first line goes like this -
#!/bin/bash
Use this script -
#!/bin/bash
mystring="one two three test five"
for token in $mystring
do
if [ $token = "one" ]
then
echo ${#token}
elif [ $token = "two" ]
then
echo ${#token}
elif [ $token = "three" ]
then
echo ${#token}
elif [ $token = "test" ]
then
echo ${#token}
elif [ $token = "five" ]
then
echo ${#token}
fi
done
The wc
command is a good bet.
$ echo "one two three four five" | wc
1 5 24
where the result is number of lines, words and characters. In a script:
#!/bin/sh
mystring="one two three four five"
read lines words chars <<< `wc <<< $mystring`
echo "lines: $lines"
echo "words: $words"
echo "chars: $chars"
echo -n "word lengths:"
declare -i nonspace=0
declare -i longest=0
for word in $mystring; do
echo -n " ${#word}"
nonspace+=${#word}"
if [[ ${#word} -gt $longest ]]; then
longest=${#word}
fi
done
echo ""
echo "nonspace chars: $nonspace"
echo "longest word: $longest chars"
The declare
built-in casts a variable as an integer here, so that +=
will add rather than append.
$ ./doit
lines: 1
words: 5
chars: 24
word lengths: 3 3 5 4 4
nonspace chars: 19
code
var=(one two three)
length=${#var[@]}
echo $length
output
3