UNIX wc -l with line length restriction

Question

I need to count the number of lines in a file, in a UNIX shell script, but I need the number of lines under 80 characters, and if there are more than 80 characters, count it as multiple lines.

I know wc -l counts the number of lines, and I know there aren't any options to specify this kind of thing, so how would I do this?

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:04

8

Use fold to break lines > 80 characters and then pipe the output to wc, e.g.

$ fold file | wc -l

answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:04

Paul R

208,748
37
389
560

Wonderful! Thanks for the speedy reply! – skeggse Mar 08 '11 at 17:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:03

1

This may do what you want:

sed -r 's,(.{80}),\1\n,g' filename | wc -l

answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:03

Erik

88,732
13
198
189

You don't need a capture group. `sed -r 's/.{80}/&\n/g'` – Dennis Williamson Mar 08 '11 at 17:29

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:55

0

While the fold answer best fits the unix way:

awk '{n += 1+int(length/80)} END {print n}' filename

answered Mar 08 '11 at 17:55

glenn jackman

238,783
38
220
352

UNIX wc -l with line length restriction

3 Answers3