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.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 8.\" 9.\" @(#)wc.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 04/19/94 10.\" 11.Dd 12.Dt WC 1 13.Os 14.Sh NAME 15.Nm wc 16.Nd word, line, and byte count 17.Sh SYNOPSIS 18.Nm wc 19.Op Fl clw 20.Op Ar file ... 21.Sh DESCRIPTION 22The 23.Nm wc 24utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each 25input 26.Ar file 27(or standard input, by default) to the standard output. 28A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline> 29character, 30and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space 31characters. 32White space characters are the set of characters for which the 33.Xr isspace 3 34function returns true. 35If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts 36for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for 37the last file. 38.Pp 39The following options are available: 40.Bl -tag -width Ds 41.It Fl c 42The number of bytes in each input file 43is written to the standard output. 44.It Fl l 45The number of lines in each input file 46is written to the standard output. 47.It Fl w 48The number of words in each input file 49is written to the standard output. 50.El 51.Pp 52When an option is specified, 53.Nm wc 54only reports the information requested by that option. 55The default action is equivalent to specifying all of the flags. 56.Pp 57If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no 58file name is displayed. 59.Pp 60The 61.Nm wc 62utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 63.Sh SEE ALSO 64.Xr isspace 3 65.Sh COMPATIBILITY 66Historically, the 67.Nm wc 68utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of 69characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''. 70The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters 71correctly so that `` ^D^E '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar'' 72counted as 8 characters. 734BSD systems after 4.3BSD modified the implementation to be consistent 74with the documentation. 75This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the 76.Xr isspace 3 77function, as required by 78.St -p1003.2 . 79.Sh STANDARDS 80The 81.Nm wc 82function conforms to 83.St -p1003.2 . 84