GNU bug report logs - #9449
Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Laurent TARRISSE" <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
To: <bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:49:24 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi,

Documentation on 'wc' says:
----------------------------------------------
wc -m, --chars
              print the character counts

----------------------------------------------

But here follows the output I get:

>echo toto | wc --chars
5
>echo five | wc --chars
5
>echo four | wc --chars
5
>echo f  | wc --chars
2
>echo "" | wc --chars
1

Why does 'wc' add one character ?

Thanks.

----------------------------------------------
UNIX VERSION:
----------------------------------------------
>uname -a
Linux jdm-qualiac-srv-trv.midilibre.com 2.6.9-100.ELsmp #1 SMP Tue Feb 1 12:04:42 EST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>uname -r
2.6.9-100.ELsmp
>cat /etc/issue
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 9)
Kernel \r on an \m

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #10 received at 9449-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: Laurent TARRISSE <ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com>
Cc: 9449-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9449: Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:25:28 -0600

tag 9449 notabug
thanks

On 09/06/2011 07:49 AM, Laurent TARRISSE wrote:
>> echo toto | wc --chars
> 5

Thanks for the report; however, this is correct.  wc is counting the 
newline output by echo.

Try these to see the difference:

$ printf toto | wc --chars
4
$ echo toto | od -tx1z

> Why does 'wc' add one character ?

It doesn't.  Echo does.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake <at> redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

Message #13 received at 9449 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Davide Brini <dave_br <at> gmx.com>
To: 9449 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9449: Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 16:22:00 +0200

On Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:49:24 +0200, "Laurent TARRISSE"
<ltarrisse <at> midilibre.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Documentation on 'wc' says:
> ----------------------------------------------
> wc -m, --chars
>               print the character counts
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
> But here follows the output I get:
> 
> >echo toto | wc --chars
> 5
> >echo five | wc --chars
> 5
> >echo four | wc --chars
> 5
> >echo f  | wc --chars
> 2
> >echo "" | wc --chars
> 1
> 
> Why does 'wc' add one character ?

wc isn't adding anything. If you do "echo toto" you're sending five
characters to the pipe. Try this:

echo toto | od -c


-- 
D.

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