From: "Benjamin R. Haskell" <zsh@benizi.com>
To: TJ Luoma <luomat@gmail.com>
Cc: Zsh Users <zsh-users@zsh.org>
Subject: Re: wc and leading spaces
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:37:45 -0400 (EDT) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.LNX.2.01.1108222126130.10525@hp.internal> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CADjGqHvYVmvqV+mF9Cdk6wbPoeq-n0pgSJQHwGm1xjaG1T_XVg@mail.gmail.com>
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On Mon, 22 Aug 2011, TJ Luoma wrote:
> Can anyone explain why 'wc' adds leading spaces to its output? ^1
>
> for example:
>
> $ ls | wc -l | sed 's# #~#g'
> ~~~~1299
>
> or in another dir:
>
> $ ls | wc -l | sed 's# #~#g'
> ~~~~~~47
>
> I don't understand why:
>
> a) anyone would want leading spaces
>
> b) why they add enough spaces so that the numbers are "right"
> justified (that might not be the proper term, but you get the idea)
I don't get leading spaces² when any of '-c/--bytes', '-m/--chars', or
'-l/--lines' is added. Without one of those options, the output of `wc`
isn't useful for machine consumption without processing, so they made it
"pretty" for human consumption.
> Zsh question: Is there a way to get rid of the spaces without using
> either "| awk '{print $1}'" or "| sed 's#^ *##g'"?
var=${=$(ls | wc -l)}
A possibly better way to count files: (pretty sure that was just an
example... but either way...):
set -- *(N)
print $#
A possibly better way to count lines (keeping with the ls example):
${#${(f):-"$(ls)"}}
> ^1 — well, GNU's 'wc' does not seem to add leading spaces, but my
> standard 'wc' in Mac OS X does…
²: with GNU `wc`... --version
wc (GNU coreutils) 8.12
--
Best,
Ben
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-08-23 1:38 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-08-22 23:53 TJ Luoma
2011-08-23 0:21 ` Vincent Lefevre
2011-08-23 0:24 ` Vincent Lefevre
2011-08-23 1:37 ` Benjamin R. Haskell [this message]
2011-08-23 2:31 ` Aaron Davies
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