GNU bug report logs - #34524
wc: word count incorrect when words separated only by no-break space

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Message #17 received at 34524 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Bruno Haible <bruno <at> clisp.org>, Pádraig Brady
 <P <at> draigbrady.com>, bug-libunistring <at> gnu.org
Cc: vampyrebat <at> gmail.com, 34524 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#34524: wc: word count incorrect when words separated only by
 no-break space
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 09:47:02 -0800

Bruno Haible wrote:
> I would find it best to introduce an option '--unicode'
> to 'wc', that would produce Unicode compliant results, at the cost of
>    - not following POSIX to the letter,

It'd make sense to have an option. How about a more-general option --words, that 
would let the user define what a word is? This option's operand could use ERE 
syntax, or a shorthand beginning with '+' for common combinations. For example, 
the command:

wc --words='[[:alnum:]]+'

would say that a word consists of the longest contiguous sequence of 
alphanumeric characters. And

wc --words='+unicode'

would use the Unicode definition of word, whatever it is.

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