Shell script to echo the length of the given string as argument

Author: Vivek Gite Last updated: August 9, 2008 5 comments

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end. This shell script will find out given string length as command line argument.

#!/bin/bash
# Write a shell script to echo the length of the given string as argument.
string="$1"
 
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
        echo "Syntax: $(basename $0) string"
        exit 1
fi
 
# get length of the string
length=$(echo ${#string})
 
echo "String length = $length"

Following script optimized for speed, as suggested by Chris (see below in comments section)

#!/bin/bash
# Write a shell script to echo the length of the given string as argument.
# Version 2, as suggested by  Chris F.A. Johnson
string="$@"
 
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
        echo "Syntax: ${0##*/} string"
        exit 1
fi
 
# get length of the string
length=${#string}
 
echo "String length = $length"

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5 comments… add one

Chris F.A. Johnson Jan 23, 2010 @ 0:25
bullygram, your script is functionally equivalent to:
clear
read -ep $’enter the string\n’ str
printf “length\n%d\n” ${#str}
Reply Link
bullygram Oct 2, 2009 @ 20:47
we can also do like this!
program:
#!/bin/bash
#include
clear
echo “enter the string”
read str
for i in “$str”;do
echo “length”
echo ${#i}
done
Reply Link
vivek Aug 9, 2008 @ 9:59
Thanks for sharing tips.
Reply Link
Chris F.A. Johnson Aug 7, 2008 @ 19:42
echo “Syntax: $(basename $0) string”
Why use an external command? The shell can do it internally:
echo “Syntax: ${0##*/} string”
length=$(echo ${#string})
What’s the point of using echo and command substitution (which is slow)?
length=${#string}
Reply Link
- Suresh Feb 3, 2011 @ 13:44
  Hi Chris,
  When I embed this “length=${#string}” in bash shell script it was throwing an error as shown below
  “test.sh: bad substitution”
  I guess, shell interpretted string after “#” character as comment.
  Please help me out escape the # character and get required result.
  Regards,
  Suresh
  Reply Link