WC Tool

This is a Java implementation of the wc (word count) tool, developed as part of a coding challenge from Coding Challenges.

Features

• Count the number of lines, words, and bytes in a file.
• Read input from a file specified as a command-line argument.

Learning Outcomes

During the development of this project, I learned the following:

• How to use BufferedReader for efficient reading of text files.
• How to use FileInputStream for reading files at the byte level.
• Handling command-line arguments in Java.

Usage

Compile

To compile the program, run:

javac Main.java

Command

To count lines, words, and bytes in a file, specify the filename as a command-line argument:

java Main ccwc <path to your file>

Performance Considerations

BufferedReader

BufferedReader reads data from the disk and stores it in a buffer (RAM memory).

Pros: Fast for reading text data because it minimizes disk I/O operations by reading larger chunks of data at once.

Cons: Not suitable for counting the exact number of bytes, as it reads data as characters, which can vary in size depending on the character encoding.

FileInputStream

FileInputStream reads data from the disk byte by byte.

Pros: Accurate for counting the exact number of bytes.

Cons: Slower for reading large text files compared to BufferedReader because it performs more disk I/O operations.

Reason for Choice

We used FileInputStream instead of BufferedReader to count the number of bytes to ensure precise byte counting, despite the slower performance for large files.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Coding Challenges for providing the challenge and guidance for this project.