Count number of lines in files then compare which has more (BASH)

Question

I need to count the number of lines in x files and compare which has more.

The one I've done only takes two files and compares them. Any idea how to make it x amount of files?

echo Enter the filename read fn

echo Enter another file read fn1

for WORD in $(cat $fn) do
        echo "$WORD" done | wc -l

for WORD in $(cat $fn1) do
        echo "$WORD" done | wc -l

if (cat $fn | wc -l > cat $fn1 | wc -l) then
        echo First file has more lines than second file else if (cat $fn1 | wc -l > cat $fn | wc -l) then
        echo Second file has more lines than first file.

fi

I suggest you use `wc -l $fn` instead of `cat $fn | wc -l`, in order to avoid a UUoC — rahmu, Feb 26 '12 at 23:03

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 26 '12 at 20:38

4

find . -name "*.txt" -exec wc -l '{}' \; | sort -n

you can learn line size then sort them with a one liner.

answered Feb 26 '12 at 20:38

Selman Ulug

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can you explain what this actually does? – smatthewenglish Apr 25 '15 at 09:25

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 16 '14 at 13:57

1

find . -name '*txt' | xargs wc -l | sort -n

On my machine, this was faster than the -exec version.

answered Oct 16 '14 at 13:57

Eric Wilson

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 26 '12 at 20:41

1

wc -l * | head -n -1 | sort | tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 3

This will give you the filename of the file with the highest number of lines

answered Feb 26 '12 at 20:41

Khaja Minhajuddin

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won't this break if there's a newline in the filename? – rahmu Feb 26 '12 at 23:01
@rahmu newlines are the least expected in filenames, moreover I don't know if it's even possible to create a filename with a newline character in it. – Khaja Minhajuddin Feb 27 '12 at 13:26

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 27 '12 at 00:05

1

Just name all files you want to compare, and sort by size (-numeric):

wc -l a.html b.html c.html | sort -n

answered Feb 27 '12 at 00:05

user unknown

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Count number of lines in files then compare which has more (BASH)

4 Answers4