WC
Section: User Commands (1)
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BSD mandoc
NAME
wc
- Word, line, and byte count.
SYNOPSIS
wc
[-clw
]
[file ...
]
DESCRIPTION
The
wc
utility reads one or more input text files, and, by
default, writes the number of lines, words, and bytes
contained in each input file to the standard output.
If more than one input file is specified,
a line of cumulative count(s) for all named files is output on a
separate line
following the last file count.
Wc considers a word to be a maximal string of
characters delimited by white space.
The following options are available:
- -c
-
The number of bytes in each input file
is written to the standard output.
- -l
-
The number of lines in each input file
is written to the standard output.
- -w
-
The number of words in each input file
is written to the standard output.
When an option is specified,
wc
only
reports the
information requested by that option. The
default action is equivalent to all the
flags
-clw
having been specified.
The following operands are available:
- file
-
A pathname of an input file.
If no file names
are specified, the standard input is used and
a file name is not output. The resulting output is one
line of the requested count(s) with the cumulative sum
of all files read in via standard input.
By default, the standard output contains a line for each
input file of the form:
lines words bytes file_name
The counts for lines, words and bytes are integers separated
by spaces.
The ordering of the display of the number of lines, words,
and/or bytes is the order in which the options were specified.
The
wc
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
STANDARDS
The
wc
function conforms to
St -p1003.2 .
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- STANDARDS
-
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Time: 06:34:22 GMT, May 19, 2025