Linux Shells by Example

wc—counts lines, words, and characters

wc [ -lwc ] [ filename …]

wc counts lines, words, and characters in a file or in the standard input if no filename is given. A word is a string of characters delimited by a space, tab, or new line.

Example A.71.

1 wc filex 2 who | wc -l 3 wc -l filex

Explanation

1. Prints the number of lines, words, and characters in filex.

2. The output of the who command is piped to wc, displaying the number of lines counted.

3. Prints the number of lines in filex.