xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision 06e482e60a60643b7d60549870f45c6ba6c4c7a8)
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35.\"     @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
36.\" $FreeBSD$
37.\"
38.Dd June 13, 2002
39.Dt WC 1
40.Os
41.Sh NAME
42.Nm wc
43.Nd word, line, character, and byte count
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.Nm
46.Op Fl clmw
47.Op Ar
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Nm
51utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each
52input
53.Ar file
54(or standard input, by default) to the standard output.
55A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline>
56character,
57and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space
58characters.
59White space characters are the set of characters for which the
60.Xr iswspace 3
61function returns true.
62If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts
63for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for
64the last file.
65.Pp
66The following options are available:
67.Bl -tag -width Ds
68.It Fl c
69The number of bytes in each input file
70is written to the standard output.
71.It Fl l
72The number of lines in each input file
73is written to the standard output.
74.It Fl m
75The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output.
76If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this
77is equivalent to the
78.Fl c
79option.
80.It Fl w
81The number of words in each input file
82is written to the standard output.
83.El
84.Pp
85When an option is specified,
86.Nm
87only reports the information requested by that option.
88The default action is equivalent to specifying the
89.Fl c , l
90and
91.Fl w
92options.
93.Pp
94If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
95file name is displayed.
96.Sh ENVIRONMENT
97The
98.Ev LANG , LC_ALL
99and
100.Ev LC_CTYPE
101environment variables affect the execution of
102.Nm
103as described in
104.Xr environ 7 .
105.Sh EXAMPLES
106Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
107.Pa report1
108and
109.Pa report2
110as well as the totals for both:
111.Pp
112.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2"
113.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
114.Ex -std
115.Sh SEE ALSO
116.Xr iswspace 3
117.Sh COMPATIBILITY
118Historically, the
119.Nm
120utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
121characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
122The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
123correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
124counted as 8 characters.
125.Bx 4
126systems after
127.Bx 4.3
128modified the implementation to be consistent
129with the documentation.
130This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
131.Xr iswspace 3
132function, as required by
133.St -p1003.2 .
134.Sh STANDARDS
135The
136.Nm
137utility conforms to
138.St -p1003.1-2001 .
139.Sh HISTORY
140A
141.Nm
142command appeared in
143.At v1 .
144