xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision e785a241f2a841ff2345d1a61514f889cc1526b6)

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.\"     @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd June 13, 2002
.Dt WC 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm wc
.Nd word, line, character, and byte count
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl clmw
.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each
input
.Ar 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
.Xr isspace 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.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl c
The number of bytes in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.It Fl l
The number of lines in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.It Fl m
The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output.
If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this
is equivalent to the
.Fl c
option.
.It Fl w
The number of words in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.El
.Pp
When an option is specified,
.Nm
only reports the information requested by that option.
The default action is equivalent to specifying the
.Fl c ,
.Fl l
and
.Fl w
options.
.Pp
If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
file name is displayed.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The
.Ev LANG ,
.Ev LC_ALL
and
.Ev LC_CTYPE
environment variables affect the execution of
.Nm
as described in
.Xr environ 7
when the
.Fl m
option is specified.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
.Pa report1
and
.Pa report2
as well as the totals for both:
.Pp
.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2"
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Ex -std
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr isspace 3
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
Historically, the
.Nm
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.
.Bx 4
systems after
.Bx 4.3
modified the implementation to be consistent
with the documentation.
This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
.Xr isspace 3
function, as required by
.St -p1003.2 .
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v1 .