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

A very simple way to count the columns of the first line in pure bash (no awk, perl, or other languages):

read -r line < $input_file
ncols=`echo $line | wc -w`

This will work if your data are formatted appropriately.