Ubuntu – How to use zenity file selection

bashfilesscriptszenity

I am new to zenity and I am trying to make a simple script for loading a file using zenity --file-selection and the wc command to get the word count of that file. I have successfully made a form which can be used to browse the file but I am unable to get any output. Can you please tell me where I am making the mistake?

My current script is:

#creates a box

if zenity --entry \
--title="Word count" \
--text="Enter file location" \
--entry-text "File path"

  then
#Zenity file selection code for browsing and selecting files

FILE=`zenity --file-selection --title="Select a File"`
case $? in
         0)
                echo "\"$FILE\" selected.";;
         1)
                echo "No file selected.";;
        -1)
                echo "An unexpected error has occurred.";;
esac

# To show the location in the text box

if zenity --entry \
--title="Word count" \
--text="Enter file location" \
--entry-text "$FILE"
then

#word counting code

word_count='wc $FILE'
zenity --info --title="Word Counted" --text="Counted words $word_count"
fi
fi

Best Answer

In order to save the output of a command in a variable, you must enclose the command in backtics (`command`) or, better, in $() ($(command)). You are using single quotes which means that you are saving the string wc $FILE and not actually running wc:

$ foo='wc /etc/fstab' ## WRONG
$ echo $foo
wc /etc/fstab

$ foo=`wc /etc/fstab`  ## RIGHT
$ echo $foo 
23 96 994 /etc/fstab

$ foo=$(wc /etc/fstab)   ## RIGHT
$ echo $foo 
23 96 994 /etc/fstab

In addition, in order to get only the words and not the number of characters and lines, use the -w option:

$ foo=$(wc -w /etc/fstab)   
$ echo $foo 
96 /etc/fstab

Finally, to get the number alone, with no file name, you can use:

$ foo $(wc -w /etc/fstab | cut -d ' ' -f 1 )
$ echo $foo
96
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