Print the number of characters of every file name using for loop in Mac terminal

user_13651848 0
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I need to print the number of characters of every file name in a directory using a for loop in the terminal (Mac). This directory is called lorem and it has 3 files: at.txt, lorem.txt and sed.txt.

Up to now I have done this:

lorem sarahr$ ls
at.txt      lorem.txt   sed.txt
FILES=/Users/sarahr/lab-bash-master/lorem/*
lorem sarahr$ for i in $FILES
> do
> echo '$FILES has' | wc -c
> done
      11
      11
      11

Eleven three times is the result, but it's not what I need. Could you help me?

for-loop macos terminal bash
2 Answers

Say you have a directory lorem with the following file structure:

lorem/
├── at.txt
├── lorem.txt
└── sed.txt

The following bash script should work as required when run inside the folder:

for file_name in * ; do echo ${#file_name} ; done

Output:

6
9
7

Documentation for ${#parameter}:

The length in characters of the expanded value of parameter is substituted. If parameter is '*' or '@', the value substituted is the number of positional parameters. If parameter is an array name subscripted by '*' or '@', the value substituted is the number of elements in the array.

user_63282560

First, cd to the directory where your files are located. Change the loop you showed to count the length of the desired file names ($file variable). Use echo -n to suppress the terminal newline, which adds 1 to the file name length.

cd /Users/sarahr/lab-bash-master/lorem
for file in * ; do
    echo -n "$file "
    echo -n "$file" | wc -c
done

Output:

at.txt 6
lorem.txt 9
sed.txt 7
user_9676210
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