this is one:
ls -l . | egrep -c '^-'
Note:
ls -1 | wc -l
Which means:ls: list files in dir
ls
-1: (that's a ONE) only one entry per line. Change it to -1a if you want hidden files too
-1
|: pipe output onto...
|
wc: "wordcount"
wc
-l: count lines.
-l
l