Question

I have to write a script to read each line using a while loop and count the number of words in each line. So far i can get the total number of lines and the text for each on its own line. I am having trouble using the wc -w command to count the number of words for each line and display it. when i put it on the same line as the printf statement is gives an inaccurate count. I have to pipe the text tile to the script so it will count the words, for example: cat file.txt | word_count.sh

any suggestions?

code:

#!/bin/bash
line_num=1

while read line;do
  printf "line $line_num: $line"
  ((line_num++))
done

results:

cat imagine.txt | word_counts.sh 
line1: magine there's no countries 
line2: It isn't hard to do 
line3: Nothing to kill or die for 
line4: And no religion too 
line5: Imagine all the people living life in peace 

Answer 1

printf "$line_num: $(echo $line | wc -w)"