bug#20954: wc - linux

[tele]

tag 20954 + notabug
close 20954
thanks

tele wrote:

Hi!

Hi! 

From terminal:

$ a="" ; echo $s | wc -l
1

Do you mean $a instead of $s?  Either way is the same though assuming
$s is empty too.

- Yes, my mistake :-) 

Should be 0 , yes ?

No.  Should be 1.  You have forgotten about the newline at the end of
the command.  The echo will terminate with a newline.  You can see
this with od.

  echo | od -tx1 -c
  0000000  0a
           \n

Since this appears to be a usage error I have closed the bug.  Please
feel free to follow up with more information.  We will read it.  And
we appreciate additional communication!  I am simply closing it to
keep the accounting straight.  

Bob

# "echo" gives in new line, "echo -n" subtracts 1 line, but "wc -l" can count only from new line,
# so if something exist inside first line "wc -l" can not count. :-(
# example:
#
#	$ a="j" ; echo  "$a"  |  wc -l
#	1
#
#	$ a="" ; echo  "$a"  |  wc -l
#	1
#
#	$ a="" ; echo -n "$a"  |  wc -l
#	0
#
#	$ a="j" ; echo -n "$a"  |  wc -l
#	0

So,

$ a="" ; echo  "$a"  |  sed '/^\s*$/d' | wc -l
0

$ a="3" ; echo  "$a"  |  sed '/^\s*$/d' | wc -l
1

Can be added option to "wc" to fix this problem without use sed in future ?
Thanks for helping :-)