How to count characters in a file using JES (Python for students)

Question

How to have python read a text file and return the number of lines, characters, vowels, consonants, lowercase letters, and uppercase letters

Write a program that accepts the name of a file as a command-line argument. (You can assume that the input file will be a plain-text file.) If the user forgets to include the command line argument, your program should exit with an appropriate error message.

Otherwise, your program should print out:

• The number of lines in the file
• The number of characters in the file
• The number of vowels in the file (For the purposes of this assignment, treat "y" as a consonant.)
• The number of consonants in the file
• The number of lowercase letters in the file
• The number of uppercase letters in the file

I am at a lose. How would I do this? like im pretty sure there are commands that can do this but I dont know what they are. Thanks for your help :)

EDIT This is my final program and its perfect. Thank you all for your help. Special thanks to Bentaye :)

import sys
def text(): 
    countV = 0 
    countC = 0 
    lines = 0 
    countU = 0
    countL = 0
    characters = 0 
    vowels = set("AEIOUaeiou") 
    cons = set("bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyzBCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ")    
    upper = set("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ")
    lower = set("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz")

    with open(sys.argv[1]) as file:
        fileLines = file.readlines()

    for line in fileLines: 
        lines = lines + 1 
        characters = characters + len(line) 
        for char in line: 
            if char in vowels: 
                countV = countV + 1 
            elif char in cons: 
                countC = countC + 1
        for char in line:
            if char in upper:
                countU = countU + 1
            elif char in lower:
                countL = countL + 1
    print("Lines: " + str(lines)) 
    print("Characters: " + str(characters)) 
    print("Vowels: " + str(countV)) 
    print("Consonants: " + str(countC))
    print("Lowercase: " + str(countL))
    print("Uppercase: " + str(countU))
text()

Answer 1

This fixes your problem, you can build onto it now for upper/lower cases

• use sys.argv[0] to capture the argument (you need to import sys)
• Then use file.readlines() to get an array of lines (as Strings)

Code

import sys

countV = 0 
countC = 0 
lines = 0 
characters = 0 
vowels = set("AEIOUaeiou") 
cons = set("bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyzBCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ") 

with open(sys.argv[0]) as file:
    fileLines = file.readlines()

    for line in fileLines: 
        lines = lines + 1 
        characters = characters + len(line) 
        for char in line: 
            if char in vowels: 
                countV = countV + 1 
            elif char in cons: 
                countC = countC + 1

    print("Lines: " + str(lines)) 
    print("Characters: " + str(characters)) 
    print (countV) 
    print (countC)

You call it this way

python test.py yourFile.txt 

Complete answer for reference

import sys

vowels = "aeiou"
cons = "bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz"

with open(sys.argv[0]) as file:
    fileLines = file.readlines()

    countVowels = 0 
    countConsonants = 0 
    countUpperCase = 0 
    countLowerCase = 0 
    countLines = 0 
    countCharacters = 0 
    countNonLetters = 0 

    for line in fileLines: 
        countLines += 1 
        countCharacters = countCharacters + len(line) 
        for char in line: 
            if char.isalpha():
                if char.lower() in vowels: 
                    countVowels += 1 
                elif char.lower() in cons: 
                    countConsonants += 1

                if char.isupper():
                    countUpperCase += 1
                elif char.islower():
                    countLowerCase += 1

            else:
                countNonLetters += 1

    print("Lines: " + str(countLines)) 
    print("Characters: " + str(countCharacters)) 
    print("Vowels: " + str(countVowels)) 
    print("Consonants: " + str(countConsonants)) 
    print("Upper case: " + str(countUpperCase)) 
    print("Lower case: " + str(countLowerCase)) 
    print("Non letters: " + str(countNonLetters))