Re: [PATCH] Re: wc --no-total option

[Mike Jonkmans]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2022 at 03:45:53PM +0200, Jim Meyering wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2022, 14:53 Pádraig Brady <P@draigbrady.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 12/09/2022 10:20, David Pinto wrote:
> > > On Sun, 26 Jun 2022 at 00:49, David Pinto <carandraug+dev@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >> Hi
> > >>
> > >> A couple of years ago [1] someone made a feature request for a wc
> > >> option that would skip the total line when processing multiple files.
> > >> I didn't see anyone commenting against it and it is something that I'm
> > >> constantly hacking with `head -n-1`.
> > >>
> > >> I've attached a patch that implements a new `--no-total` option to wc.
> > >> I believe this patch to be trivial enough that I can't claim copyright
> > >> for anything.
> > >>
> > >> Best regards
> > >> David
> > >>
> > >> [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2015-11/msg00064.html
> > >
> > > Hi
> > >
> > > It's been almost 3 months without any reply.  I hope it's OK to bump
> > > it again.  I've just changed the subject line to make it clear there
> > > is a patch attached.
> >
> > Thanks for the bump.
> >
> > This is one of those marginal ones since
> > there is no extra functionality provided
> > by bringing the logic within the utility.
> >
> > The following function would achieve the desired functionality:
> >
> >    wc-no-total() { wc "$@" /dev/null | head -n-2; }
> >
> > Since it's easy enough to achieve with a single extra processing step,
> > Given the above, I'd be 60:40 against adding a --no-total option.
> > But thinking more, the above is awkward to combine with the --files0-from
> > option.
> > So you'd need a separate invocation in that case like:
> >
> >    { find files -print0; printf '%s\0' /dev/null; } |
> >    wc --files0-from=- |
> >    head -n2
> >
> > Even though there is still no extra functionality,
> > the above is starting to get a bit obtuse.
> >
> > If we lifted the restriction with --files0-from
> > to also allow file names to be specified on the command line
> > (and for those to be processed after stdin),
> > it would mean the wc-no-total() function above would be general,
> > and would work for all wc invocations.
> >
> > Though a --no-total option is looking more appealing
> > given the above considerations. I.e. that the
> > wc-no-total() implementation isn't obvious,
> > and we'd have to change wc anyway to make it general.
> >
> > So I'd be 55:45 for adding this option.
> >
> 
> Good arguments. +1

I think it is nice to have.

What about only printing the total?
With 'wc --total' or 'wc -t'.

-- 
Regards, Mike Jonkmans