1.\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)wc.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94 32.\" $FreeBSD$ 33.\" 34.Dd December 1, 2015 35.Dt WC 1 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm wc 39.Nd word, line, character, and byte count 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41.Nm 42.Op Fl -libxo 43.Op Fl Lclmw 44.Op Ar 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm 48utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each 49input 50.Ar file , 51or standard input (if no file is specified) to the standard output. 52A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a 53.Aq newline 54character. 55Characters beyond the final 56.Aq newline 57character will not be included 58in the line count. 59.Pp 60A word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space 61characters. 62White space characters are the set of characters for which the 63.Xr iswspace 3 64function returns true. 65If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts 66for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for 67the last file. 68.Pp 69The following options are available: 70.Bl -tag -width indent 71.It Fl -libxo 72Generate output via 73.Xr libxo 3 74in a selection of different human and machine readable formats. 75See 76.Xr xo_parse_args 3 77for details on command line arguments. 78.It Fl L 79The number of characters in the longest input line 80is written to the standard output. 81When more than one 82.Ar file 83argument is specified, the longest input line of 84.Em all 85files is reported as the value of the final 86.Dq total . 87.It Fl c 88The number of bytes in each input file 89is written to the standard output. 90This will cancel out any prior usage of the 91.Fl m 92option. 93.It Fl l 94The number of lines in each input file 95is written to the standard output. 96.It Fl m 97The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output. 98If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this 99is equivalent to the 100.Fl c 101option. 102This will cancel out any prior usage of the 103.Fl c 104option. 105.It Fl w 106The number of words in each input file 107is written to the standard output. 108.El 109.Pp 110When an option is specified, 111.Nm 112only reports the information requested by that option. 113The order of output always takes the form of line, word, 114byte, and file name. 115The default action is equivalent to specifying the 116.Fl c , l 117and 118.Fl w 119options. 120.Pp 121If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no 122file name is displayed. 123The prompt will accept input until receiving EOF, or 124.Bq ^D 125in most environments. 126.Sh ENVIRONMENT 127The 128.Ev LANG , LC_ALL 129and 130.Ev LC_CTYPE 131environment variables affect the execution of 132.Nm 133as described in 134.Xr environ 7 . 135.Sh EXIT STATUS 136.Ex -std 137.Sh EXAMPLES 138Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files 139.Pa report1 140and 141.Pa report2 142as well as the totals for both: 143.Pp 144.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2" 145.Pp 146Find the longest line in a list of files: 147.Pp 148.Dl "wc -L file1 file2 file3 | fgrep total" 149.Sh COMPATIBILITY 150Historically, the 151.Nm 152utility was documented to define a word as a 153.Do 154maximal string of 155characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters 156.Dc . 157The implementation, however, did not handle non-printing characters 158correctly so that 159.Dq Li "\ \ ^D^E\ \ " 160counted as 6 spaces, while 161.Dq Li foo^D^Ebar 162counted as 8 characters. 163.Bx 4 164systems after 165.Bx 4.3 166modified the implementation to be consistent 167with the documentation. 168This implementation defines a 169.Dq word 170in terms of the 171.Xr iswspace 3 172function, as required by 173.St -p1003.2 . 174.Pp 175The 176.Fl L 177option is a non-standard 178.Fx 179extension, compatible with the 180.Fl L 181option of the GNU 182.Nm 183utility. 184.Sh SEE ALSO 185.Xr iswspace 3 , 186.Xr libxo 3 , 187.Xr xo_parse_args 3 188.Sh STANDARDS 189The 190.Nm 191utility conforms to 192.St -p1003.1-2001 . 193.Sh HISTORY 194A 195.Nm 196command appeared in 197.At v1 . 198