tonybnya/ccwc

Build My Own wc Tool

Build My Own wc Tool

NB: First of all, this script uses Python 3.8.2

This challenge is to build my own version of the Unix command line tool wc.

The Challenge - Build wc

The functional requirements for wc are concisely described by its man page - give it a go in a local terminal:

man wc

The TL/DR version is: wc - word, line, character, and byte count.

There are 2 text files, test.txt, and usage.txt, used to check the behavior of the original wc and my version, ccwc.

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Write a simple version of wc, let’s call it ccwc (cc for Coding Challenges).

1. flag -c = number of bytes in a file

The output should match this:

wc -c test.txt
  342190 test.txt

wc -c test.txt usage.txt
  342190 test.txt
    1152 usage.txt
  343342 total

python3 ccwc.py -c test.txt
  342190 test.txt

python3 ccwc.py -c test.txt usage.txt
  342190 test.txt
    1152 usage.txt
  343342 total

2. flag -l = number of lines in a file

The output should match this:

wc -l test.txt
  7145 test.txt

wc -l test.txt usage.txt
  7145 test.txt
    27 usage.txt
  7172 total

python3 ccwc.py -l test.txt
  7145 test.txt

python3 ccwc.py -l test.txt usage.txt
  7145 test.txt
    27 usage.txt
  7172 total

3. flag -m = number of characters in a file

The output should match this:

wc -m test.txt
  339292 test.txt

wc -m test.txt usage.txt
  339292 test.txt
    1152 usage.txt
  340444 total

python3 ccwc.py -m test.txt
  339292 test.txt

python3 ccwc.py -m test.txt usage.txt
  339292 test.txt
    1152 usage.txt
  340444 total

4. flag -w = number of words in a file

The output should match this:

wc -w test.txt
  58164 test.txt

wc -w test.txt usage.txt
  58164 test.txt
    168 usage.txt
  58332 total

python3 ccwc.py -w test.txt
  58164 test.txt

python3 ccwc.py -w test.txt usage.txt
  58164 test.txt
    168 usage.txt
  58332 total

5. No flag = -l, -w, and -c together

The output should match this:

wc test.txt
  7145 58164 342190 test.txt

wc test.txt usage.txt
  7145 58164 342190 test.txt
    27   168   1152 usage.txt
  7172 58332 343342 total

python3 ccwc.py test.txt
  7145 58164 342190 test.txt

python3 ccwc.py test.txt usage.txt
  7145 58164 342190 test.txt
    27   168   1152 usage.txt
  7172 58332 343342 total

6. No argument = read from standard input

cat test.txt | wc -l
  7145

cat test.txt | python3 ccwc.py -l
  7145