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The wc command, short form of word count. can return the number of lines, words, and charcters in a file. The wc options are straightforward .
Syntax :
wc [-c | -m | -C ] [-l] [-w] [ file ... ]
-c Count bytes.
-m Count characters.
-C Same as -m.
-l Count lines.
-w Count words delimited by white space characters or new line characters.
For examples :
$ wc filename
X Y Z filename
X – Number of lines
Y – Number of words
Z – Number of bytes
filename – name of the file
$ wc demofile.txt
36 104 570 demofile.txt
The above output indicates that the demofile.txt has 36 lines, 104 words, and 570 bytes.
Print specific counts as required
You can use -l option to print only the line count as shown below.
$ wc -l demofile.txt
36 demofile.txt
The same way you can use the following options for specific requirements such as,
-w : print only word count
-c : print only the byte count
You can also use any combination of above options.
Print the length of longest line
You can use -L option to print the length of longest line in the file.
$ wc -L demofile.txt
84 demofile.txt
The wc command, short form of word count. can return the number of lines, words, and charcters in a file. The wc options are straightforward .
Syntax :
wc [-c | -m | -C ] [-l] [-w] [ file ... ]
-c Count bytes.
-m Count characters.
-C Same as -m.
-l Count lines.
-w Count words delimited by white space characters or new line characters.
For examples :
$ wc filename
X Y Z filename
X – Number of lines
Y – Number of words
Z – Number of bytes
filename – name of the file
$ wc demofile.txt
36 104 570 demofile.txt
The above output indicates that the demofile.txt has 36 lines, 104 words, and 570 bytes.
Print specific counts as required
You can use -l option to print only the line count as shown below.
$ wc -l demofile.txt
36 demofile.txt
The same way you can use the following options for specific requirements such as,
-w : print only word count
-c : print only the byte count
You can also use any combination of above options.
Print the length of longest line
You can use -L option to print the length of longest line in the file.
$ wc -L demofile.txt
84 demofile.txt
