wc

word, line, and byte or character count

TLDR

Count all lines in a file

$ wc --lines [path/to/file]

Count all words in a file

$ wc --words [path/to/file]

Count all bytes in a file

$ wc --bytes [path/to/file]

Count all characters in a file (taking multi-byte characters into account)

$ wc --chars [path/to/file]

Count all lines, words and bytes from stdin

$ [find .] | wc

Count the length of the longest line in number of characters

$ wc --max-line-length [path/to/file]

SYNOPSIS

wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...
wc [OPTION]... --files0-from=F

DESCRIPTION

Print newline, word, and byte counts for each FILE, and a total line if more than one FILE is specified. A word is a non-zero-length sequence of printable characters delimited by white space.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

The options below may be used to select which counts are printed, always in the following order: newline, word, character, byte, maximum line length.

-c, --bytes: print the byte counts
-m, --chars: print the character counts
-l, --lines: print the newline counts
--files0-from=F: read input from the files specified by NUL-terminated names in file F; If F is - then read names from standard input
-L, --max-line-length: print the maximum display width
-w, --words: print the word counts
--total=WHEN: when to print a line with total counts; WHEN can be: auto, always, only, never
--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

Copyright © 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

AUTHOR

Written by Paul Rubin and David MacKenzie.

wc