xref: /dragonfly/usr.bin/wc/wc.1 (revision f8f04fe3)
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35.\"     @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
36.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1,v 1.6.2.4 2002/08/25 02:47:04 tjr Exp $
37.\" $DragonFly: src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1,v 1.3 2006/02/17 19:39:16 swildner Exp $
38.\"
39.Dd June 13, 2002
40.Dt WC 1
41.Os
42.Sh NAME
43.Nm wc
44.Nd word, line, character, and byte count
45.Sh SYNOPSIS
46.Nm
47.Op Fl clmw
48.Op Ar
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Nm
52utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each
53input
54.Ar file
55(or standard input, by default) to the standard output.
56A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline>
57character,
58and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space
59characters.
60White space characters are the set of characters for which the
61.Xr isspace 3
62function returns true.
63If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts
64for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for
65the last file.
66.Pp
67The following options are available:
68.Bl -tag -width Ds
69.It Fl c
70The number of bytes in each input file
71is written to the standard output.
72.It Fl l
73The number of lines in each input file
74is written to the standard output.
75.It Fl m
76The number of characters in each input file is written to the standard output.
77If the current locale does not support multibyte characters, this
78is equivalent to the
79.Fl c
80option.
81.It Fl w
82The number of words in each input file
83is written to the standard output.
84.El
85.Pp
86When an option is specified,
87.Nm
88only reports the information requested by that option.
89The default action is equivalent to specifying the
90.Fl c ,
91.Fl l
92and
93.Fl w
94options.
95.Pp
96If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
97file name is displayed.
98.Sh ENVIRONMENT
99The
100.Ev LANG ,
101.Ev LC_ALL
102and
103.Ev LC_CTYPE
104environment variables affect the execution of
105.Nm
106as described in
107.Xr environ 7 .
108.Sh EXAMPLES
109Count the number of characters, words and lines in each of the files
110.Pa report1
111and
112.Pa report2
113as well as the totals for both:
114.Pp
115.Dl "wc -mlw report1 report2"
116.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
117.Ex -std
118.Sh COMPATIBILITY
119Historically, the
120.Nm
121utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
122characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
123The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
124correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
125counted as 8 characters.
126.Bx 4
127systems after
128.Bx 4.3
129modified the implementation to be consistent
130with the documentation.
131This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
132.Xr isspace 3
133function, as required by
134.St -p1003.2 .
135.Sh SEE ALSO
136.Xr isspace 3
137.Sh STANDARDS
138The
139.Nm
140utility conforms to
141.St -p1003.1-2001 .
142.Sh HISTORY
143A
144.Nm
145command appeared in
146.At v1 .
147