[SOLVED] Why does `wc -m` output one too many?

Snake_Eyes_ · 04-06-2010, 11:54 AM

# echo "foobar" > /tmp/word
# cat /tmp/word | wc -m
7

I want to print the number of characters in the file.
Why does it output 7? Am I missing something obvious?

manpage:
-m, --chars
print the character counts

Fingers of Fudge · 04-06-2010, 12:02 PM

Maybe there's an end of file character.

tredegar · 04-06-2010, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Maybe there's an end of file character.

It is is a <NL>:

Code:

tred@pc:~$ echo "foobar" > /tmp/word
tred@pc:~$ hexdump /tmp/word
0000000 6f66 626f 7261 000a
=        o f  b o  r a   <NL> 
=        f o  o b  a r   <NL> when you have byte-swapped

Try it again with echo -n "foobar" > /tmp/word

Code:

man echo....
DESCRIPTION
       Echo the STRING(s) to standard output.

       -n     do not output the trailing newline

Snake_Eyes_ · 04-06-2010, 01:03 PM

Awesome!!!! Works, thanks.