WC(1) User Commands WC(1) NAME wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each 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. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. A word is a non-zero-length sequence of characters delimited by white space. 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 length of the longest line -w, --words print the word counts --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit AUTHOR Written by Paul Rubin and David MacKenzie. REPORTING BUGS Report wc bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org GNU coreutils home page: General help using GNU software: Report wc translation bugs to COPYRIGHT Copyright © 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later . This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO The full documentation for wc is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and wc programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'wc invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. GNU coreutils 8.12.197-032bb September 2011 WC(1)