strCharacters = objFile.ReadAll\n<\/PRE>\nWe\u2019re practically done now. Why? Because once we have the contents of the file stashed away in a variable we can then use VBScript\u2019s Len<\/B> function to report back the number of characters in that variable. And that\u2019s good, because the number of characters in the variable will equal the number of characters in the file.<\/P>\n
So then why did we say that we were practically<\/I> done? Well, if you were to manually count the characters in the file you\u2019d probably come up with 204. However, our script is going to report back 210. Why? Because the script is going to include two characters (the carriage return and the linefeed characters) that occur at the end of lines 1, 2, and 3 in the file. You don\u2019t see those characters and you probably don\u2019t consider them to even be<\/I> characters. But VBScript does.<\/P>\n
Therefore, before we begin counting we use this line of code to get rid of any carriage return-linefeed characters:<\/P>
strCharacters = Replace(strCharacters, vbCrLf, “”)\n<\/PRE>\nAll we\u2019re doing here is using the Replace<\/B> function to search through strCharacters and replace all the carriage return-linefeeds (represented by the VBScript constant vbCrLf<\/B>) with, well, nothing (\u201c\u201d). Needless to say, we could use this same approach to get rid of anything else we didn\u2019t want to count as characters. For example, suppose you don\u2019t want blank spaces counted as characters. No problem; just add in this line of code, which removes all the blank spaces from strCharacters:<\/P>strCharacters = Replace(strCharacters, ” “, “”)\n<\/PRE>\nDon\u2019t like periods, question marks, or, say, semicolons? Now you know what to do about those problem characters, too.<\/P>\n
After deleting the carriage return-linefeeds (and any other unwanted characters) we finally get to use the Len function to report back the number of characters in the file:<\/P>
Wscript.Echo Len(strCharacters)\n<\/PRE>\nAll that\u2019s left now is to close the file and then go back to watching TV.<\/P>\n
Speaking of which, we\u2019re sure many of you are thinking, \u201cGosh, Scripting Guys, you already answer our scripting questions for us; you don\u2019t have to watch TV for us as well.\u201d All we can say is this: don\u2019t worry about it. Someone<\/I> needs to tell you about all the latest commercials, and if that means the Scripting Guys have to spend their time watching TV, well, that\u2019s a sacrifice we\u2019re willing to make. Anything for our customers!<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I count the number of characters in a text file?— LD Hey, LD. We know a burning question for many of you (in addition to the question of how you can count the number of characters in a text file) is this: what kind of digital video recorder does the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4,14,5],"class_list":["post-65383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-text-files","tag-vbscript"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I count the number of characters in a text file?— LD Hey, LD. We know a burning question for many of you (in addition to the question of how you can count the number of characters in a text file) is this: what kind of digital video recorder does the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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