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wc(1)
NAME
  wc - Counts the lines, words, characters, and bytes in a file

SYNOPSIS
  wc [-c  | -m] [-lw] [file...]

  The wc command counts the lines, words, and characters or 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.

STANDARDS
  Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards
  as follows:

  wc:  XCU5.0

  Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about
  industry standards and associated tags.

OPTIONS
  -c  Counts bytes in the input.

  -l  Counts lines in the input.

  -m  Counts characters in the input.

  -w  Counts words in the input.

OPERANDS
  file
      Specifies the pathname of the input file.	 If this operand is omitted,
      standard input is used.

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 options to limit wc output.  Specifying wc without options is
  the equivalent of specifying wc -lwc.	 If any options are specified, only
  the requested information is output.

  The order in which counts appear in the output line is lines, words, bytes.
  If an option is omitted, then the corresponding field in the output is
  omitted.  If the -m option is used, then character counts replace byte
  counts.

  When you specify one or more files, wc displays the names of the files
  along with the counts.  If standard input is used, then no file name is
  displayed.

EXIT STATUS
  The following exit values are returned:

  0   Successful completion.

  >0  An error occurred.

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 include the appropriate
       options. For example, the following command displays only line and
       byte counts:
	    wc -cl text

	    27 722 text

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

	    27	    text
	    112	    text1
	    5	    text2
	    144	    total

       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.

   4.  The file name is always appended to the output.	To obtain a pure
       number for things like reporting purposes, pipe all input to the wc
       command using cat.  For example, the following command will report the
       total count of characters in all .c files in a directory.
	    echo There are `cat *.c | wc -c` characters in \*.c files

	    There are 1869 characters in *.c files

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
  The following environment variables affect the execution of wc:

  LANG
      Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that
      are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value
      from the default locale is used.	If any of the internationalization
      variables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of
      the variables had been defined.

  LC_ALL
      If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the
      other internationalization variables.

  LC_CTYPE
      Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of
      text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to
      multibyte characters in arguments and input files) and which characters
      are defined as white space characters.

  LC_MESSAGES
      Determines the locale for the format and contents of diagnostic
      messages written to standard error and informative messages written to
      standard output.

  NLSPATH
      Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
      LC_MESSAGES.

SEE ALSO
  Commands:  cksum(1), ls(1)

  Standards:  standards(5)

Index for Section 1

Alphabetical listing for W

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