The wc command¶
the wc command stands for word count. It's used to count the number of lines, words, and bytes (characters) in a file or standard input then prints the result to the standard output.
Examples:¶
- To count the number of lines, words and characters in a file in order:
wc file.txt
- To count the number of directories in a directory:
ls -F | grep / | wc -l
Syntax:¶
bash wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Additional Flags and their Functionalities:¶
| Short Flag | Long Flag | Description |
|---|---|---|
-c | --bytes | print the byte counts |
-m | --chars | print the character counts |
-l | --lines | print the newline counts |
--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 | |
-L | --max-line-length | print the maximum display width |
-w | --words | print the word counts |
Additional Notes:¶
- Passing more than one file to
wccommand prints the counts for each file and the total conuts of them. - you can combine more whan one flag to print the result as you want.
Last update: 2022-05-12