Counting number of users in a group – Linux

Counting number of users in a group – Linux

Here is a small command to find number of users in particular group on a *nix system. An example for wheel group:

grep wheel /etc/group | fgrep -o , | wc -m

Now here’s a catch, this command actually counts the commas in the line from the group file. So if there are 5 users in the group, the output will be 4. You will have to add a 1 to the output.

So when using it in scripts, one can use it like this:

VAR1=$(($(grep wheel /etc/group | fgrep -o , | wc -m) + 1))
echo $VAR1
5

Explanation:

First grep will print only the group and its members. The members are seperated by a comma. Next we print the commas using -o option and later count them using wc command. The second example will just add a 1 to it.

Read more at http://kaustubhghanekar.blogspot.com/2015/12/counting-number-of-users-in-group-linux.html#IXfIGy3o5PEqmMlL.99