If this makes two files named "x" and "y", and not one file named "x space y": 
f="x y"
touch $f

[download]
then your shell is not /bin/sh compatible. Whitespace parsing happens before variable parsing in every bourne-ish shell I've used since the late 70s.

As for "my" syntax: 

< $file | wc -l

[download]
you erroneously put an extra pipe in there. Remove it, try again, and give yourself minus 1 point for bad copying.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

update: Yeah, I apparently got the first part wrong. My memory of shell programming has really creeped away over the years. However, I just noticed that zsh does it differently than bash, which is probably why I now misremember. zsh does work the way I stated.

However, the second part does work on real shells, just not on bash or csh.

In reply to •Re^6: Sort Large Files by merlyn
in thread Sort Large Files by Velaki

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