wc(1)wc(1)NAMEwc - count words, lines, and bytes or characters in a file
SYNOPSIS
[file]...
DESCRIPTION
The command counts lines, words, and bytes or characters in the named
files, or in the standard input if no file names are specified. It
also keeps a total count for all named files.
A word is a string of characters delimited by spaces, tabs, or new‐
lines.
Options
recognizes the following options:
Report the number of bytes in each input file.
Report the number of newline characters in each input file.
Report the number of characters in each input file.
Report the number of words in each input file.
The and options are mutually exclusive. Otherwise, the and or options
can be used in any combination to specify that a subset of lines,
words, and bytes or characters are to be reported.
When any option is specified, reports only the information requested.
If no option is specified, the default output is
When a file is specified on the command line, its name is printed along
with the counts.
Standard Output
By default, the standard output contains an entry for each input file
in the form:
newlines words bytes file
If the option is specified, the number of characters replaces the bytes
field in this format.
If any option is specified, the fields for the unspecified options are
omitted.
If no file operand is specified, neither the file name nor the preced‐
ing blank character is written.
If more than one file operand is specified, an additional line is writ‐
ten at the end of the output, of the same format as the other lines,
except that the word (in the POSIX locale) is written instead of a file
name and the total of each column is written as appropriate.
Under UNIX Standard environment, a word is a string of characters
delimited by spaces, tabs, newline, carriage-return, vertical tab, or
form-feed.
RETURN VALUE
exits with one of the following values:
Successful completion.
An error occurred.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
For information about the UNIX Standard environment, see standards(5).
Environment Variables
determines the range of graphics and space characters, and the inter‐
pretation of text as single- and/or multibyte characters.
determines the language in which messages are displayed.
If or is not specified in the environment or is null, they default to
the value of
If is not specified or is null, it defaults to (see lang(5)).
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, they
all default to See environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported. with a new‐
line character, the count will be off by one.
WARNINGS
The command counts the number of newlines to determine the line count.
If a text file has a final line that is not terminated with a newline
character, the count will be off by one.
EXAMPLES
Print the number of words and characters in
The following is printed when the above command is executed:
where words is the number of words and chars is the number of charac‐
ters in
SEE ALSOstandards(5).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCEwc(1)