xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision 98c385e7d6242854de5f8612e6be21ab9adc75b9)
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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 ,
90.Fl l
91and
92.Fl w
93options.
94.Pp
95If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
96file name is displayed.
97.Sh ENVIRONMENT
98The
99.Ev LANG ,
100.Ev LC_ALL
101and
102.Ev LC_CTYPE
103environment variables affect the execution of
104.Nm
105as described in
106.Xr environ 7 .
107.Sh EXAMPLES
108Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
109.Pa report1
110and
111.Pa report2
112as well as the totals for both:
113.Pp
114.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2"
115.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
116.Ex -std
117.Sh SEE ALSO
118.Xr iswspace 3
119.Sh COMPATIBILITY
120Historically, the
121.Nm
122utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
123characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
124The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
125correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
126counted as 8 characters.
127.Bx 4
128systems after
129.Bx 4.3
130modified the implementation to be consistent
131with the documentation.
132This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
133.Xr iswspace 3
134function, as required by
135.St -p1003.2 .
136.Sh STANDARDS
137The
138.Nm
139utility conforms to
140.St -p1003.1-2001 .
141.Sh HISTORY
142A
143.Nm
144command appeared in
145.At v1 .
146