wc1
Word, line, and byte or character count
Usage
wc [OPTION] ...
[FILE] ...
wc [OPTION] ...
--files0-from=F
Overview
Print newline, word, and byte counts for each FILE, and a total line if more than one FILE is specified. A word is a nonempty sequence of non white space delimited by white space characters or by start or end of input.
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
-
--debug -
indicate what line count acceleration is used
-
--files0-from=F -
read input from the files specified by NUL-terminated names in file F; If F is -, 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
Releases
19 releases since Debian 1.1 (Buzz); the text changed 15 times.
--debug since Arch Linux 2026-11-01;
--files0-from since Debian 5.0 (Lenny);
--max-line-length since Debian 2.2 (Potato);
--total since Debian 13 (Trixie);
-L since Debian 2.2 (Potato);
-m since Debian 3.1 (Sarge).