wc

NAME

wc - word, line, and byte count

SYNOPSIS

wc [-c|-m [-lsw]] [ file ...]

DESCRIPTION

The wc(1) utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each input file (or standard input, by default) to the standard output. A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline> character, and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space characters. White space characters are the set of characters for which the isspace(3) function returns true. If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for the last file.

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.

-m

The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output. In a multibyte environment, this can be different from the number of bytes.

-s

Display only a summary of the totals for all files.

-w

The number of words in each input file is written to the standard output.

When an option is specified, wc(1) only reports the information requested by that option. The default action is equivalent to specifying all of the flags.

If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no file name is displayed.

DIAGNOSTICS

The wc(1) utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.