Bug#469525: coreutils: [wc] RFC: Add option --no-filename

[Jari Aalto]

Package: coreutils
Version: 6.10-3
Severity: wishlist


Description:

        $ wc -l README
        200 README

This is fine for interactive use, but not convenient in shell scripts,
because the outpur cannot be easily handles. Many times only the
integer value is needed:

        lines=$(wc -l $file)

        if [ $lines > $max ]; then              # ERROR!
           ... do something
        fi

SUGGESTION

Of course there are various workarounds, but it would be nice to have
new option 

        --no-filename

That would suppress the filename from the ooutput listing. Naturally
if multiple files were given:

        wc -l --no-filename  a b c 

The listing would only include the (-l) counts and suppress the names.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_DK.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_DK.UTF-8 (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) 
(ignored: LC_ALL set to C)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages coreutils depends on:
ii  libacl1                       2.2.45-1   Access control list shared library
ii  libc6                         2.7-8      GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libselinux1                   2.0.35-1   SELinux shared libraries

coreutils recommends no packages.

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