Question

How can I make the code below to return the number of words separated by space?

example='aaa bbb ccc ddd eee'
echo ${#example}

The command echo ${#example} returns total number of letters (19). What’s the best command to returns total number of words (5)?

Answer 1

$ foo=($example)

$ echo ${#foo[*]}
5

If you want to do it without a variable

$ set $example

$ echo $#
5