Scroll to navigation

WC(1) User Commands WC(1)

NAME

wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file

SYNOPSIS

wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...
wc [OPTION]... --files0-from=F

DESCRIPTION

Print newline, word, and byte counts for each FILE, and a total line if more than one FILE is specified. A word is a non-zero-length sequence of characters delimited by white space.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

The options below may be used to select which counts are printed, always in the following order: newline, word, character, byte, maximum line length.

-c, --bytes
print the byte counts
-m, --chars
print the character counts
-l, --lines
print the newline counts
--files0-from=F
read input from the files specified by NUL-terminated names in file F; If F is - then read names from standard input
-L, --max-line-length
print the maximum display width
-w, --words
print the word counts
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit

AUTHOR

Written by Paul Rubin and David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report wc translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

Full documentation at: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/wc>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) wc invocation'
February 2019 GNU coreutils 8.30