How do I count the number of rows and columns in a file using bash?

Question

Say I have a large file with many rows and many columns. I\'d like to find out how many rows and columns I have using bash.

Answer 1

Perl solution:

perl -ane '$maxc = $#F if $#F > $maxc; END{$maxc++; print "max columns: $maxc\nrows: $.\n"}' file

If your input file is comma-separated:

perl -F, -ane '$maxc = $#F if $#F > $maxc; END{$maxc++; print "max columns: $maxc\nrows: $.\n"}' file

output:

max columns: 5
rows: 2

-a autosplits input line to @F array
$#F is the number of columns -1
-F, field separator of , instead of whitespace
$. is the line number (number of rows)