Find Longest (or Shortest) Line in a File

Quick scripts to find the longest line in a file. To find the shortest line, just invert the appropriate test.

Gawk

gawk "{ if (length > max) { max = length; m = $0 } }  END { print m }" <file>

Gawk + Sort + Tail

gawk "{ printf("""%4.0f %s\n""", length,$0) }" <file> | sort | tail -1

In Windows Cmd, three double-quotes are required to escape a double-quote, and the %4.0f format control ensures that lines up to 9999 characters long are sorted correctly.

PowerShell

get-content <file> | sort-object -property length | select-object -last 1

WC

wc -L gives the length of the longest line, but not the line itself.

2008-04-20: Consolidated all samples into this article.