xref: /dragonfly/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision ee48961f)
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31.\"     @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
32.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1,v 1.6.2.4 2002/08/25 02:47:04 tjr Exp $
33.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:39:16 swildner Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd June 13, 2002
36.Dt WC 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm wc
40.Nd word, line, character, and byte count
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl clmw
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
51(or standard input, by default) to the standard output.
52A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline>
53character,
54and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space
55characters.
56White space characters are the set of characters for which the
57.Xr isspace 3
58function returns true.
59If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts
60for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for
61the last file.
62.Pp
63The following options are available:
64.Bl -tag -width Ds
65.It Fl c
66The number of bytes in each input file
67is written to the standard output.
68.It Fl l
69The number of lines in each input file
70is written to the standard output.
71.It Fl m
72The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output.
73If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this
74is equivalent to the
75.Fl c
76option.
77.It Fl w
78The number of words in each input file
79is written to the standard output.
80.El
81.Pp
82When an option is specified,
83.Nm
84only reports the information requested by that option.
85The default action is equivalent to specifying the
86.Fl c ,
87.Fl l
88and
89.Fl w
90options.
91.Pp
92If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
93file name is displayed.
94.Sh ENVIRONMENT
95The
96.Ev LANG ,
97.Ev LC_ALL
98and
99.Ev LC_CTYPE
100environment variables affect the execution of
101.Nm
102as described in
103.Xr environ 7 .
104.Sh EXIT STATUS
105.Ex -std
106.Sh EXAMPLES
107Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
108.Pa report1
109and
110.Pa report2
111as well as the totals for both:
112.Pp
113.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2"
114.Sh COMPATIBILITY
115Historically, the
116.Nm
117utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
118characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
119The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
120correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
121counted as 8 characters.
122.Bx 4
123systems after
124.Bx 4.3
125modified the implementation to be consistent
126with the documentation.
127This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
128.Xr isspace 3
129function, as required by
130.St -p1003.2 .
131.Sh SEE ALSO
132.Xr isspace 3
133.Sh STANDARDS
134The
135.Nm
136utility conforms to
137.St -p1003.1-2001 .
138.Sh HISTORY
139A
140.Nm
141command appeared in
142.At v1 .
143