counting chars in buffer

[Emanuel Berg]

How would one do that?

Using 'wc -c' on the file isn't allowed as I've
heard some systems (?) don't come with that.

Here are two suggestions:

    (require 'cl-lib)

    (defun count-chars ()
      (interactive)
      (save-excursion
        (let ((start (point-min))
              (end   (point-max))
              (chars 0) )
          (goto-char start)
          (while (< (point) end)
            (forward-char)
            (cl-incf chars) )
          chars) ))
    ;; (count-chars)

    (defun count-chars-2 ()
      (interactive)
      (length (buffer-string) ))
    ;; (count-chars-2)

One could also do a DWIM function which acts on
the region if there, otherwise the whole buffer...

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