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wc

Print newline, word, and byte counts for each file

command Text ProcessingFile ContentUtilities

Overview

Prints the total number of bytes, words, and lines in each of the given files.

Syntax

wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Common Options

-l, --lines

Print the newline counts.

-w, --words

Print the word counts.

-m, --chars

Print the character counts.

-c, --bytes

Print the byte counts.

-L, --max-line-length

Print the maximum display width.

--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.

Examples

$ wc myfile.txt

Displays the newline, word, and byte counts for myfile.txt.

$ wc -l report.doc

Displays only the number of lines in report.doc.

$ wc -w chapter1.txt chapter2.txt

Displays the word counts for chapter1.txt and chapter2.txt, and their total.

$ ls -1 | wc -l

Counts the number of files and directories in the current directory.

$ echo "Hello world" | wc -m

Counts the characters in the string "Hello world" (including the newline from echo).

$ wc -L data.csv

Shows the length of the longest line in data.csv.

Related Commands

cat

Concatenate and display file content

grep

Print lines matching a pattern

find

Search for files in a directory hierarchy

less

Opposite of more; view file content paginated

head

Output the first part of files

tail

Output the last part of files

word countlinescharactersbytescounttextfilewc