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Cover image for How to count lines of your code from your SHELL.
darker
darker

Posted on • Updated on

How to count lines of your code from your SHELL.

#bash #code #lines #count

So, this one is quite simple, let say, you want to count the lines of code you have inside a project, from a file or a whole directory, how are you going to do it ?

Demo

HOW

This is done with a simple bash function

loc(){
    echo -ne "Lines of Code : ";
    if [ -n "$1" ]; then
        find . -wholename $1 | xargs wc -l;
    else
        find . -name '*' -type f | xargs cat | wc -l;
    fi
}
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Basically, it will find files depending on your input and use wc to count lines of your code.

You can then add this in your ~/.bashrc and source before use it or save it in separate shell file that you can call and use when you want !

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Top comments (8)

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ccoveille profile image
Christophe Colombier • • Edited

Hi darker

Few suggestion s:

find . -wholename $1 | xargs wc -l;

wc -l $1
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That's it.

Even if this would be better if the file starts with a "-", such as "-whatever"

wc -l -- $1
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You can test with such a file

echo "whatever\nok" > "-strangefile"
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Also,

find . -name '*' -type f | xargs cat | wc -l;

I assume you wanted to exclude all hidden folders.

If not, then

find -type f | xargs cat | wc -l;
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would have been enough.

But here is what I would write, assuming you want to exclude all hidden files from current folder.

find * -type f | xargs cat | wc -l;
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But here is what I would write

find * -type f -print0 | xargs -r -0 cat | wc -l
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-print0 to be able to cope with files with spaces in it, then -0 to accept them as xargs parameters

Just create a file with space to see the problem with your script

echo "whatever\nok" > "file with spaces"
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Then the -r is about to tell xargs to do not lamentably fail if nothing is found.

Such as creating a folder, go in that folder with cd, then launch your script. It may work, I'm on my phone for days, no computer close to me. But xargs without -r is anti pattern for me.

Same as find | xargs without the -print0 and -0

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ccoveille profile image
Christophe Colombier •

I'm wrong with

wc -l $1
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Your code was ok with folder while mine doesn't.

So here is what I would suggest:

find "$@" -type f -print0 | xargs -r -0 cat | wc -l
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No if branching needed.

$@ allows you to pass any parameters

So you can pass a folder and two files to your script for example

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sanixdarker profile image
darker •

NIIIICE !
Thanks for the feedback, i will update that !

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ccoveille profile image
Christophe Colombier •

Test first, I'm not in front of a computer 😅

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sanixdarker profile image
darker •

Haha !
Don't worry, i just tested it and it's working !

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ccoveille profile image
Christophe Colombier •

21 years of Linux experience after all 😅

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sanixdarker profile image
darker •

yeah, you rock man !

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ccoveille profile image
Christophe Colombier •

Your implementation is good proof of concept, but there are commonly accepted implementations

github.com/AlDanial/cloc

dwheeler.com/sloccount/

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