Count number of characters on a line

[craig322]

I need to verify how many fields are on a line. Each line should have 210 fields. I tried using awk, but ran into the 199 field limit. Is there a way that I can count the number of | (field delimiters) on each line or the total for the entire file?

TIA

Craig

 

[grega]

Use nawk instead of awk.

nawk -F\| '{print NF}' filename

Greg.

 

[grega]

To print lines which don't have 210 fields

nawk -F\| 'NF!=210'

Greg.

 

[craig322]

We do not have nawk installed. Do you have any other thoughts on how to do this?

 

[PHV]

Try something like this:
awk 'gsub("|","|")!=210' /path/to/inputfile

Hope This Help, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[aigles]

PHV, for 210 fields there are only 209 field separators

[tt]awk 'gsub("|","|")!=209' /path/to/inputfile [/tt]

Jean Pierre.

 

[PHV]

Good catch JP