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 6, 2008 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 Lclmw 43.Op Ar 44.Sh DESCRIPTION 45The 46.Nm 47utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each 48input 49.Ar file , 50or standard input (if no file is specified) to the standard output. 51A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a 52.Aq newline 53character. 54Characters beyond the final 55.Aq newline 56character will not be included 57in the line count. 58.Pp 59A word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space 60characters. 61White space characters are the set of characters for which the 62.Xr iswspace 3 63function returns true. 64If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts 65for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for 66the last file. 67.Pp 68The following options are available: 69.Bl -tag -width indent 70.It Fl L 71The number of characters in the longest input line 72is written to the standard output. 73When more then one 74.Ar file 75argument is specified, the longest input line of 76.Em all 77files is reported as the value of the final 78.Dq total . 79.It Fl c 80The number of bytes in each input file 81is written to the standard output. 82This will cancel out any prior usage of the 83.Fl m 84option. 85.It Fl l 86The number of lines in each input file 87is written to the standard output. 88.It Fl m 89The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output. 90If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this 91is equivalent to the 92.Fl c 93option. 94This will cancel out any prior usage of the 95.Fl c 96option. 97.It Fl w 98The number of words in each input file 99is written to the standard output. 100.El 101.Pp 102When an option is specified, 103.Nm 104only reports the information requested by that option. 105The order of output always takes the form of line, word, 106byte, and file name. 107The default action is equivalent to specifying the 108.Fl c , l 109and 110.Fl w 111options. 112.Pp 113If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no 114file name is displayed. 115The prompt will accept input until receiving EOF, or 116.Bq ^D 117in most environments. 118.Sh ENVIRONMENT 119The 120.Ev LANG , LC_ALL 121and 122.Ev LC_CTYPE 123environment variables affect the execution of 124.Nm 125as described in 126.Xr environ 7 . 127.Sh EXIT STATUS 128.Ex -std 129.Sh EXAMPLES 130Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files 131.Pa report1 132and 133.Pa report2 134as well as the totals for both: 135.Pp 136.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2" 137.Pp 138Find the longest line in a list of files: 139.Pp 140.Dl "wc -L file1 file2 file3 | fgrep total" 141.Sh COMPATIBILITY 142Historically, the 143.Nm 144utility was documented to define a word as a 145.Do 146maximal string of 147characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters 148.Dc . 149The implementation, however, did not handle non-printing characters 150correctly so that 151.Dq Li "\ \ ^D^E\ \ " 152counted as 6 spaces, while 153.Dq Li foo^D^Ebar 154counted as 8 characters. 155.Bx 4 156systems after 157.Bx 4.3 158modified the implementation to be consistent 159with the documentation. 160This implementation defines a 161.Dq word 162in terms of the 163.Xr iswspace 3 164function, as required by 165.St -p1003.2 . 166.Pp 167The 168.Fl L 169option is a non-standard 170.Fx 171extension, compatible with the 172.Fl L 173option of the GNU 174.Nm 175utility. 176.Sh SEE ALSO 177.Xr iswspace 3 178.Sh STANDARDS 179The 180.Nm 181utility conforms to 182.St -p1003.1-2001 . 183.Sh HISTORY 184A 185.Nm 186command appeared in 187.At v1 . 188