xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision 417ed37975261df51f61d13e179ad04d8f4839c7)
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35.\"     @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
36.\"
37.Dd April 19, 1994
38.Dt WC 1
39.Os
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm wc
42.Nd word, line, and byte count
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Nm wc
45.Op Fl clw
46.Op Ar file ...
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm wc
50utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each
51input
52.Ar file
53(or standard input, by default) to the standard output.
54A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline>
55character,
56and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space
57characters.
58White space characters are the set of characters for which the
59.Xr isspace 3
60function returns true.
61If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts
62for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for
63the last file.
64.Pp
65The following options are available:
66.Bl -tag -width Ds
67.It Fl c
68The number of bytes in each input file
69is written to the standard output.
70.It Fl l
71The number of lines in each input file
72is written to the standard output.
73.It Fl w
74The number of words in each input file
75is written to the standard output.
76.El
77.Pp
78When an option is specified,
79.Nm wc
80only reports the information requested by that option.
81The default action is equivalent to specifying all of the flags.
82.Pp
83If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
84file name is displayed.
85.Pp
86The
87.Nm wc
88utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
89.Sh SEE ALSO
90.Xr isspace 3
91.Sh COMPATIBILITY
92Historically, the
93.Nm wc
94utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
95characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
96The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
97correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
98counted as 8 characters.
994BSD systems after 4.3BSD modified the implementation to be consistent
100with the documentation.
101This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
102.Xr isspace 3
103function, as required by
104.St -p1003.2 .
105.Sh STANDARDS
106The
107.Nm wc
108function conforms to
109.St -p1003.2 .
110