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wc(1)

NAME

     wc -- word, line, character, and byte count

SYNOPSIS

     wc [-clmw] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The wc utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained
     in each input file, or standard input (if no file is specified) to the
     standard output.  A line is defined as a string of characters delimited
     by a <newline> character.	Characters beyond the final <newline> charac-
     ter will not be included in the line count.

     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 iswspace(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.  This will cancel out any prior usage of the -w option.

     -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.  If the current locale does not support multi-
	     byte characters, this is equivalent to the -c option.  This will
	     cancel out any prior usage of the -c option.

     -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 order of output always takes the form of line, word,
     byte, and file name.  The default action is equivalent to specifying the
     -c, -l and -w options.

     If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no file name is
     displayed.  The prompt will accept input until receiving EOF, or [^D] in
     most environments.

ENVIRONMENT

     The LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the execution
     of wc as described in environ(7).

EXAMPLES

     Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
     report1 and report2 as well as the totals for both:

	   wc -mlw report1 report2

DIAGNOSTICS

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

     ``foo^D^Ebar'' counted as 8 characters.  4BSD systems after 4.3BSD modi-
     fied the implementation to be consistent with the documentation.  This
     implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the iswspace(3) function,
     as required by IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'').

STANDARDS

     The wc utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

HISTORY

     A wc command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.

FreeBSD 5.4		       February 23, 2005		   FreeBSD 5.4

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