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I would like some advice as to how to write my wc program. Program should accept a file name as input and then print three numbers showing the count of lines, words and characters in the file. Chapter 4 question 15 of zelles introduction to python

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Assuming the question does not want a count of unique words/characters this should do it:

open the file for reading
number of words,characters, lines = 0
while a line can be read from the file  read a line into a string
         number of lines + = 1
         number of characters + = length of string
         number of words + =  length of string split into a list of words 
print out number of words, lines, characters

Obviously this is not python but pseudo code that will very easily translate into python - I'll leave that to you. Look into string functions for splitting strings into a list of words (hint). The length of this list will give you the number of words. The length of a string is the number of characters and the number of line reads is the number of lines.

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Thanks bgeddy. I really do not have much clue as to what I am doing but I am very grateful for your response. Do I type the toggle as written? What am I expected to substitute in the toggle?

Huglybits.

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Program should accept a file name as input

Do you want the program to ask the user to key in a file name, or do you want to provide it as an argument when the program is called, or do you want to use a GUI that allows the user to browse the file system and choose a file?

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I believe I want to use a GUI that allows the user to browse the file system and choose a file or to ask the user to key in a file name. I got the file which is saved in a .txt file. bgeddy used some + signs in his toggle please tell me what to do. Thanks woooee!

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You can use
number = number + 1
or
number += 1

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Sorry for not getting back sooner but it seems other kind folks in the forum have answered already.
It's hard to gauge someones level of experience when answering a question but I only outlined the program's logic broadly.

I recommend studying a beginners tutorial on python and playing around in the interpreter, following examples etc to get a feel for things.

Personally, if you are just starting out with programming in general, I wouldn't recommend developing gui front ends just yet. Perhaps just "raw_input() to read input from the user and "print " to output it.

Please don't take offence if I underestimate your level of experience and don't think I'm being deliberately vague in offering a solution. If I were to simply give you python code for a complete working program I don't think you'd learn as much as doing it for yourself. If this is a homework assignment, simply copying an offered solution verbatim will give a false impression of your proficiency.

Good luck with python !

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Thats right! I will try to understand this, it is not all complicated. Thanks for all your help!

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hi
I tried to the program mentioned above ,but my problem is I can get them done as three separate programs instead of one.Can anyone help me out?

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I asked this question to someone back when I was coding my text editor(horrible project). THis is what that person gave me to use.

def count_words(self):
        text = self.text.get(1.0, 'end')
        words = len(text.split())
        print words
        self.master.title("Text has %d words" % words)

ITs a function that counts words. Hope this helps!