How to count the number of characters on each line in vim?

Question

In vim, how can I count the number of characters on each line?

how
to
count
number
of characters?

For example, if I open a file with above text, I want to see counts like below

Heptite · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-08 05:51:09Z

up vote 3 down vote accepted

One way to do it:

:for i in range(1, line('$')) | echo i . ': ' . strlen(getline(i)) | endfor

This version shows the line number before the character count.

answered Mar 8 '12 at 5:51

Heptite
5,2251519

Daniel Andersson · Answer 2 · 2012-10-22 21:28:07Z

up vote 4 down vote

Another way:

:%!awk '{print length($0)}'

UPDATE: Even shorter (every keystroke counts!):

:%!awk '{print length}'

since I just now noticed that length defaults to entire line.

edited Oct 22 '12 at 21:28

answered Mar 8 '12 at 12:43

Daniel Andersson
8,8061824

Seems to replace the current contents of vi. So you might potentially overwrite the original file contents. – Oliver Salzburg♦ Mar 8 '12 at 13:11

1

@OliverSalzburg Then, do this: :%!tee >(awk '{print length($0)}'). This keeps the text. – new123456 Mar 9 '12 at 1:09

Pro tip: If you want to sort by line length, change it to :%!awk '{print length " " $0}, then do :sort n – Cory Klein Jan 9 at 17:51

Pauli L · Answer 3 · 2012-03-08 13:05:50Z

up vote 0 down vote

The question was about vim, but just for comparison, here is how you can do that in Vedit:

Repeat(ALL) {
   EOL
   Num_Type(Cur_Col-1)
   Line(1, ERRBREAK)
}

or as one-liner:

Repeat(ALL){ EOL NT(CN-1) L(1, ERRBREAK) }

answered Mar 8 '12 at 13:05

Pauli L
1012

3 Answers