The wc -l gives wrong result

Question

I got wrong result from the wc -l command. After a long :( checking a found the core of the problem, here is the simulation:

$ echo "line with end" > file
$ echo -n "line without end" >>file
$ wc -l file
       1 file

here are two lines, but missing the last "\n". Any easy solution?

any reason for using `echo -n` and why you can not add `\n` at the end of `echo -n`? — Bill, May 14 '13 at 01:33
The above is an **SIMULATION** of the problem. I don't make the files, only working with them. I got them without the last enter. — novacik, May 14 '13 at 01:37
Don't use a screwdriver to drive in nails when there's a hammer in your toolkit :-) You may _think_ that's two lines but the doco for `wc` disagrees. — paxdiablo, May 14 '13 at 01:39

score 32 · Accepted Answer · answered May 14 '13 at 01:35

For the wc line is what ends with the "\n" char. One of solutions is grep-ing the lines. The grep not looking for the ending NL.

e.g.

$ grep -c . file        #count the occurrence of any character
2

the above will not count empty lines. If you want them, use the

$ grep -c '^' file      #count the beginnings of the lines
2

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered May 14 '13 at 01:35

from man page of wc

 -l, --lines
              print the newline counts

form man page of echo

 -n     do not output the trailing newline

so you have 1 newline in your file and thus wc -l shows 1.

You can use the following awk command to count lines

 awk 'END{print NR}' file

2 Answers2