NAME

wc − Counts the lines, words, characters, and bytes in a file

SYNOPSIS

wc [-clmw] [file ...]

The wc command counts the lines, words, characters, and bytes in a file, or in the standard input if you do not specify any files, and writes the results to standard output.  It also keeps a total count for all named files. 

FLAGS

-cCounts bytes only. 

-lCounts lines only. 

-mCounts characters only. 

-wCounts words only. 

DESCRIPTION

A word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space as defined in the X/Open Base Definitions for XCU4. 

The wc command counts lines, words, and bytes by default.  Use the appropriate flags to limit wc output.  Specifying wc without flags is the equivalent of specifying wc -lwc. 

The order in which counts appear in the output line matches the order in which the flags are entered on the command line.  (If you do not specify any flags, the order is lines, words, bytes.) 

When you specify more than one file, wc displays the name of the file along with the counts. 

EXAMPLES

     1.To display the number of lines, words, and bytes in the file text, enter:

wc text

This results in the following output:

27 185 722 text

 
The numbers 27, 185, and 722 are the number of lines, words, and bytes, respectively, in the file text. 

     2.To display only one or two of the three counts, or to display the counts you want in a particular order, include the appropriate flags in the order you want.  For example, the following command displays only byte and line counts:

wc -cl text

722 27 text

     3.To count lines, words, and bytes in more than one file, use wc with more than one input file or with a filename pattern.  For example, the following command can be issued in a directory containing the files text, text1, and text2:

wc -l text∗

27text
112text1
5text2
144total

The numbers 27, 112, and 5 are the numbers of lines in the files text, text1, and text2, respectively, and 144 is the total number of lines in the three files. 

RELATED INFORMATION

Commands: ls(1).