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

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From: help-debbugs <at> gnu.org (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
Cc: tracker <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#9449: closed (Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one
 character)
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:30:02 +0000

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Your message dated Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:25:28 -0600
with message-id <4E662D58.8080206 <at> redhat.com>
and subject line Re: bug#9449: Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character
has caused the GNU bug report #9449,
regarding Bug report on 'wc' : characters count adds one character
to be marked as done.

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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

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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

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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

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