WC(1)                      OpenBSD Reference Manual                      WC(1)

NAME
     wc - word, line, and byte count



SYNOPSIS
     wc [-c | -m] [-lw] [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 white space.  White space characters
     are the set of characters for which the isspace(3) function returns true.

     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.

     -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.

     The following operands are available:

     file    A pathname of an input file.

     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

     The counts for lines, words and bytes are integers separated by spaces.

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

SEE ALSO
     isspace(3)

COMPATIBILITY
     Historically, the wc utility was documented to define a word as a ``maxi-
     mal string of characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> 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 Std1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'').

STANDARDS
     The wc utility conforms to IEEE Std1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'').

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

OpenBSD 2.6                     April 19, 1994                               2