[CentOS] need help: about remove space

Hi all

I have big file as below 
and would like to know how many line eg: wc -l file
but can't figure out how to know

If I type wc -l file, I only get the 1023 but it includes the space 
When I use cat file | tr -d "\r \n". it gives me "adrian alice......"
I need it as fileB and then wc -l fileB.

Thank you so much

file
====

adrian

alice


Patrick



file B
======

adrian
alice
Patrick