Find the number of characters in a file using Python

Question

Here is the question:

I have a file with these words:

hey how are you
I am fine and you
Yes I am fine

And it is asked to find the numbe

Answer 1

This is too long for a comment.

Python 2 or 3? Because it really matters. Try out the following in your REPL for both:

Python 2.7.12
>>>len("taña")
5

Python 3.5.2
>>>len("taña")
4

Huh? The answer lies in unicode. That ñ is an 'n' with a combining diacritical. Meaning its 1 character, but not 1 byte. So unless you're working with plain ASCII text, you'd better specify which version of python your character counting function is for.