WC(1)                   System General Commands Manual                   WC(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
     wc [-c | -m] [-hlsw] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The wc utility reads one or more input text files, and, by default,
     writes the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each input file
     to the standard output.  If more than one input file is specified, a line
     of cumulative count(s) for all named files is output on a separate line
     following the last file count.  wc considers a word to be a maximal
     string of characters delimited by whitespace.  Whitespace characters are
     the set of characters for which the isspace(3) function returns true.

     The options are as follows:

     -c      The number of bytes in each input file is written to the standard
             output.

     -h      Use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte,
             Petabyte, and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to
             four or fewer using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024, M=1048576,
             etc.).

     -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.

     -s      Show only a summary of the totals of all of the files.

     -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 the flags -clw having
     been specified.  The -c and -m options are mutually exclusive.

     If no file names are specified, the standard input is used and a file
     name is not output.  The resulting output is one line of the requested
     count(s) with the cumulative sum of all files read in via standard input.

     By default, the standard output contains a line for each input file of
     the form:

           lines    words  bytes   file_name

     If the -m option is specified, the number of bytes is replaced by the
     number of characters in the listing above.  The counts for lines, words,
     and bytes (or characters) are integers separated by spaces.

EXIT STATUS
     The wc utility exits 0 on success or >0 if an error occurred.

SEE ALSO
     isspace(3)

STANDARDS
     Historically, the wc utility was documented to define a word as a ``maxi-
     mal string of characters delimited by ,  or  charac-
     ters''.  The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing charac-
     ters correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while
     ``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 isspace(3) function, as
     required by IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'').

     The wc utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'') and SUS.

     The -h and -s options are extensions.

HISTORY
     A wc utility appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.

Interix                         July, 10, 2006                         Interix