Counting the Number of Characters in a File Using Bash and Assigning to Variable

Question

I need to loop through a text file provided and count the number of characters in the file. The file will only contain one word that I am supposed to analyze. So basically, I just need to know the length of the word. I want to assign the length to a variable that I have defined in the bash file. Here's what I have(ignore the other if statement at the end, I know that it is working properly. I just need help with the while loop):

#!/bin/bash
FILE=$1
COUNT=0
NUMCHARS=0
while IFS= read -rN1 char; do
  if [[ "$char" == $'[a-zA-Z0-9#$+%@]' ]]; then
    let NUMCHARS=NUMCHARS+1
  fi
done < "$FILE"
if [ -r "${FILE}" ]; then
  if /bin/egrep -q [09] $FILE ; then
    let COUNT=COUNT+5
  fi
fi
echo $COUNT
echo $NUMCHARS

Why not use the wc command?

mdl
– mdl

2014-01-31 21:55:49 +00:00
Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 21:55 — mdl
– mdl, Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 21:55

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-31 21:55:11Z

3

The file will only contain one word

In that case you can do:

# read the whole file in a variable
w="$(<"$FILE")"

# get the length
echo "length is: ${#w}"

Option 2: Using wc

len=$(( $(wc -c < "$FILE") - 1 ))

answered Jan 31, 2014 at 21:55

anubhava

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