Name
wc
Synopsis
wc [options
] [files
]
Prints byte, character, word, and line counts for each file. Prints a
total line for multiple files
. If no
files
are given, reads standard input. See
other examples
under ls
and sort
.
Options
-
-c
Print byte count only.
-
-l
Print line count only.
-
-m
Print character count only.
-
-w
Print word count only.
Examples
Count the number of users logged in:
$ who | wc -l
Count the words in three essay files:
$ wc -w essay.[123]
Count lines in the file named by variable $file
(don’t display the filename):
$ wc -l < $file
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