Cfrtjryk

I have looked at the question How to count number of words from String using shell on SO, which explains how to count words inside a variable.

But this only counts one word inside my variable so I have no idea how to fix it.

I have the following variables:

vmfarm1=(host1.com host2.com host3.com host4.com )

maximus=(host11.com host 12.com host 13.com)

firefly=(host5.com)

I need to find a way to count all the host names into a number inside the variables.

After this, the number inside that was counted, have to be used as a variable in this line.

I have tried:

echo "$input" | wc -w

printf ' n|/4.vmfarm1 ' >>  textfile.txt

I have to write the 4 above by myself to the number and I need it to be done automatically, this is why I need a variable.

Given an array arr, its length (number of elements) is given by ${#arr[@]}.

Using this with your vmfarm1 array:

printf ' n|/%d.vmfarm1 ' "${#vmfarm1[@]}" >>textfile.txt

To print the number of elements in an array variable in various shells with array support:

• 
  csh/tcsh/zsh/rc/es/akanga: echo $#array
  


• 
  ksh¹/bash¹/zsh: echo "${#array[@]}"
  


• 
  fish: count $array
  


• 
  yash: echo "${array[#]}"
  


• Bourne/POSIX shells (where the only array is "$@"): echo "$#"
  

Now for the number of whitespace delimited words in all the elements of an array variable, that's where you may want to use wc -w, but you'd need to feed it the content of all the elements separated by at least one white space for instance with:

printf '%sn' $array:q | wc -w        # csh/tcsh

printf '%sn' "${array[@]}" | wc -w   # ksh/bash/zsh/yash

printf '%sn' $array | wc -w          # fish/zsh/rc/es/akanga

printf '%sn' "$@" | wc -w            # Bourne/POSIX

Or you could do the splitting of the elements into further whitespace-delimited words and count them in the shell itself.

• 
  

  csh/tcsh (split on SPC/TAB/NL)

  
  
  

  (set noglob; set tmp=($array); echo $#tmp)
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  ksh/bash/yash ($IFS splitting, SPC/TAB/NL by default)

  
  
  

  (set -o noglob; set -- ${array[@]}; echo "$#")
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  zsh ($IFS splitting, SPC/TAB/NL/NUL by default)

  
  
  

  echo ${#${=array}}
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  rc/es ($ifs splitting):

  
  
  

  tmp = `{echo $array}
  
  echo $#tmp
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  fish (counts all sequences of non-whitespace (according to PCRE) characters):

  
  
  

  count (string match -ar -- 'S+' $array)
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  Bourne/POSIX ($IFS splitting):

  
  
  

  (set -f; set -- $@; echo "$#")
  
  

  
  

^{¹ note that given that ksh/bash arrays are sparse and have indices that start at 0 instead of 1 in every other shell, that number will generally not be the same as the maximum index in the array}

In Bash and ksh, expanding an array as if it was a normal string variable, gives the first element of the array. That is, $somearray is the same as ${somearray[0]}. ^(*)

So,

somearray=(foo bar doo)

echo "$somearray"

echo "$somearray" | wc -w

prints foo and 1, since foo is only one word. If you had somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba") instead, then the wc would show three words.

You'll need to use "${somearray[@]}" to expand all elements of the array as distinct shell words (arguments), or "${somearray[*]}" to expand them as a single shell word, joined with spaces ^(**)

In any case, note that the number of elements in an array, and the number of words (in the wc -w or the human language sense) are not the same, see below. Use "${#somearray[@]}" to get the number of elements in the array.

somearray=("foo bar doo" "acdc abba")

echo "${#somearray[@]}"                # 2 elements, that contain

echo "${somearray[@]}" | wc -w         # 5 whitespace separated words in total

_{(*) ignoring sparse and associative arrays for now.}

_{(**) assuming default IFS}.

vmfarm1, maximus and firefly are not just variables, these are arrays.

Use the proper syntax: ${#vmfarm1[@]} is the number of entries in your array.

This may be not smart, but I think you can get number of hosts in array.

vmfarm1=(host1.com host2.com host3.com host4.com)

#maximus=(host11.com host12.com host13.com)

#firefly(host5.com)

COUNT=0



for i in ${vmfarm1[@]};

do

    HOSTCOUNT=`echo $i |wc -l`

    COUNT=$((COUNT + HOSTCOUNT))

done



printf "vmfarm1:%2dn" $COUNT

Thanks