Text File Analyzer

A powerful command-line tool written in C that analyzes text files and generates detailed reports on character frequency, word frequency, and basic file statistics.

Features

• Total character, word, and line count
• Character frequency analysis (all printable characters)
• Word frequency analysis (case-insensitive, punctuation-aware)
• Flexible command-line options to control report output
• Save reports to a file with the -o flag
• Modular codebase with clean separation of concerns
• Zero memory leaks (verified with Valgrind)

Project Structure

text-file-analyzer/
├── Makefile        # Build system
├── main.c          # Entry point, argument parsing, report generation
├── analyzer.h      # Public interface for the analysis engine
├── analyzer.c      # Core file reading and analysis logic
├── hashtable.h     # Public interface for the hash table module
├── hashtable.c     # Hash table implementation (separate chaining)
├── test.txt        # Sample test file
└── edge_cases.txt  # Edge case test file

Requirements

• GCC compiler
• Make
• macOS or Linux

Installation

Clone the repository and build the project:

git clone https://github.com/samarth-swami/text-file-analyzer.git
cd text-file-analyzer
make

This will compile all source files and generate the analyzer executable.

Usage

./analyzer [options] <filename>

Options

Option	Description
-c, -w, -l	Show overall statistics (characters, words, lines)
--freq	Show character and word frequency tables
-o <file>	Write the report to a file instead of the console

If no options are specified, the full report is shown by default.

Examples

Run a full report:

./analyzer test.txt

Show only overall statistics:

./analyzer -c test.txt

Show only frequency tables:

./analyzer --freq test.txt

Save report to a file:

./analyzer -o report.txt test.txt

Combine options — stats only, saved to file:

./analyzer -c -o report.txt test.txt

Sample Output

--- Analysis Report for test.txt ---

Overall Statistics:
Total Characters:	51
Total Words:		11
Total Lines:		3

Character Frequency:
  Character  Count
  ---------  -----
  H          1
  e          6
  l          5
  ...

Word Frequency:
  Word                 Count
  -------------------- -----
  hello                1
  world                1
  test                 1
  ...

How It Works

1. Argument Parsing — main.c parses command-line flags and options.
2. Analysis Engine — analyzer.c reads the file character by character, counting characters, words, and lines, and building words into a buffer.
3. Hash Table — hashtable.c implements a hash table with separate chaining to store and count unique words efficiently using the djb2 hash algorithm.
4. Report Generation — Results are printed to the console or written to a file based on user options.

Cleaning Up

To remove compiled files:

make clean

To do a full rebuild:

make re

Technical Highlights

• djb2 Hash Function for fast and uniform word distribution
• Separate Chaining for collision resolution in the hash table
• Dynamic Memory Management with full cleanup on all exit paths
• Modular Architecture separating analysis, data structures, and reporting
• Case-insensitive word frequency counting using tolower()
• Buffer overflow protection with MAX_WORD_LEN limit

License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.