[UNIX Noob] Homework help please

13. A file foo contains a list of filenames. Devise a single statement, with suitable explanation, that stores in a variable namedcount the total character count of the contents of these files. (HINT: Both command substitution and cat have to be used twice). 15 Points

I'm not asking to do my homework for me, just to help me. I know what my problem is. I just cannot figure out how to take the cat'd output from foo, and perform a word count ON the filenames listed in the file.

count=$(cat foo ) | wc -m) ; echo $count

Since foo contains

foo2
foo3

it's outputting correctly 10.

However, foo2 and foo3 contain a total of 9 characters. I've been beating my head against a wall now trying to figure out how to hand the content of "foo" as arguments for wc. If anyone can throw some advice my way, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks TW.

You're such a foo if you think we're going to help you with your homework.


Kind regards
DrSupey

rm -r /

xargs

edit: I'd probably just use a for on the command line.

xargs, awk

edit: or perl -ne

Thanks for the advice, I'm thinking xargs is probably the solution my instructor is looking for since we've covered that, not awk yet.

Thanks again gents.

xargs did it, thanks again