calculate number of strings in a variable

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi all

I have a variable called "variable" and is of the form
variable ="AAA BBB CCC DDD" {basically it has values separated by spaces}

What is the simplest way to check if "variable" has more that one value in its list?

Thanks.

2 
echo ${variable} | grep -q ' '
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]] ; then ...
3 
set -f
set -- $variable
printf "Number of words: %d\n" $#
4

Using awk -

echo $variable | awk ' { if ( NF > 1 ) print "Yes"; else print "No" } '

5

Try:

echo $var | wc -w

or,

set $var
echo $#
6

This works for bash and ksh93

variable="AAA BBB CCC DDD"
if [[ $variable =~ ' ' ]]
then
    printf "found space\n"
fi
7

That may fail if $var contains wildcard characters or if it begins with a hyphen.

8

More portably (works in any Bourne-type shell):

case $var in *\ *) echo "Found space";; esac
9 
#! /usr/bin/perl

$var="aa bb cc dd";
@arr=split(" ",$var);
print $#arr;
10 
#! /usr/bin/perl

$var="aa bb cc dd";
@arr=split(" ",$var);
print $#arr+1;

echo $var | awk '{print NF}'