wc(1) [opendarwin man page]
WC(1) BSD General Commands Manual 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, 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 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. -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 multibyte characters, this is equivalent to 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 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. 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. SEE ALSO
iswspace(3) COMPATIBILITY
Historically, the wc utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''. The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters correctly so that `` ^D^E '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar'' counted as 8 characters. 4BSD systems after 4.3BSD modified 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. BSD
June 13, 2002 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
wc(1) User Commands wc(1) NAME
wc - display a count of lines, words and characters in a file SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/wc wc [-c | -m | -C] [-lw] [file]... ksh93 wc [-c | -m | -C] [-lLqw] [file]... DESCRIPTION
/usr/bin/wc wc reads one or more input files and, by default, writes the number of NEWLINE characters, words and bytes contained in each input file to the standard output. wc also writes a total count for all named files, if more than one input file is specified. wc considers a word to be a non-zero-length string of characters delimited by white space (for example, SPACE, TAB). See iswspace(3C) or isspace(3C). ksh93 The wc built-in in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin paths. It is invoked when wc is executed without a pathname prefix and the pathname search finds a /bin/wc or /usr/bin/wc executable. wc reads one or more input files and, by default, for each file writes a line containing the number of NEWLINEs, words, and bytes contained in each file followed by the file name to standard output in that order. A word is defined to be a non-zero length string delimited by iss- pace(3C) characters. If more than one file is specified, wc writes a total count for all of the named files with total written instead of the file name. By default, wc writes all three counts. Options can specified so that only certain counts are written. The -c, -C, and -m options are mutu- ally exclusive. If no file is specified, or if the file is -, wc reads from standard input and no filename is written to standard output. The start of the file is defined as the current offset. -c --bytes | chars List the byte counts. -l --lines List the line counts. -L --longest-line | max-line-length List the longest line length. -m | C --multibyte-chars List the character counts. -q --quiet Suppress invalid multi-byte character warnings. -w --words List the word counts. OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -c Counts bytes. -C Same as -m. -l Counts lines. -m Counts characters. -w Counts words delimited by white space characters or new line characters. Delimiting characters are Extended Unix Code (EUC) charac- ters from any code set defined by iswspace(). If no option is specified, the default is -lwc (counts lines, words, and bytes.) OPERANDS
The following operand is supported: file A path name of an input file. If no file operands are specified, the standard input is used. USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of wc when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes). ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of wc: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES- SAGES, and NLSPATH. EXIT STATUS
0 Successful completion. >0 An error occurred. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: /usr/bin/wc +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |CSI |Enabled | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Committed | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Standard |See standards(5). | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ ksh93 +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |See below. | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ The ksh93 built-in binding to /bin and /usr/bin is Volatile. The built-in interfaces are Uncommitted. SEE ALSO
cksum(1), ksh93(1), isspace(3C), iswalpha(3C), iswspace(3C), setlocale(3C), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5) SunOS 5.11 13 Mar 2008 wc(1)