$fname =  "$0";
open(TEXT, "<$fname")|| die "could not open file: $fname\n";

## Let's read 100KB per time.
my $buffer_size = 1024*100 ;

my ($buffer,$words) ;
while (sysread TEXT, $buffer, $buffer_size) {
  ## This will count fast for you:
  my @c = ($buffer =~ /( +\n+,:)/gs) ;
  $words += @c ;
}
close TEXT;

print "Length: $words\n" ;
exit;