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Command: wc | Section: 1 | Source: MINIX | File: wc.1
WC(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual WC(1)
NAME
wc - word, line, and byte count
SYNOPSIS
wc [-c | -m] [-Llw] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The wc utility displays the number of lines, words, bytes and characters
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 characters in the longest line of 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.
-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 all the flags -clw
having been specified.
The following operands are available:
file A pathname of an input file.
If no file names are specified, the standard input is used and no file
name is displayed.
By default, the standard output contains a line for each input file of
the form:
lines words bytes file_name
EXIT STATUS
The wc utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
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").
The -L option is a non-standard extension, compatible with the -L option
of the GNU and FreeBSD wc utilities.
SEE ALSO
iswspace(3)
STANDARDS
The wc utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 ("POSIX.2").
FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 February 18, 2010 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8