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NAME
       wc - word, line, and byte or character count


SYNOPSIS
       wc [-c|-m][-lw][file...]


DESCRIPTION
       The wc utility shall read one or more input files and, by default, write the number of <newline>s, words,
       and bytes contained in each input file to the standard output.

       The utility also shall write a total count for all named files, if more than one input file is specified.

       The wc utility shall consider a word to be a non-zero-length string  of  characters  delimited  by  white
       space.


OPTIONS
       The  wc  utility  shall  conform  to  the  Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2,
       Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -c     Write to the standard output the number of bytes in each input file.

       -l     Write to the standard output the number of <newline>s in each input file.

       -m     Write to the standard output the number of characters in each input file.

       -w     Write to the standard output the number of words in each input file.

       When any option is specified, wc shall report only the information requested by the specified options.


OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       file   A pathname of an input file. If no file operands are specified, the standard input shall be used.


STDIN
       The standard input shall be used only if no file operands are specified. See the INPUT FILES section.


INPUT FILES
       The input files may be of any type.


ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of wc:

       LANG   Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or  null.  (See  the
              Base  Definitions  volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for
              the  precedence  of  internationalization  variables  used  to  determine  the  values  of  locale
              categories.)

       LC_ALL If  set  to  a  non-empty  string value, override the values of all the other internationalization
              variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters  (for
              example,  single-byte  as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments and input files) and which
              characters are defined as white space characters.

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic  messages
              written to standard error and informative messages written to standard output.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .


ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.


STDOUT
       By default, the standard output shall contain an entry for each input file of the form:

              "%d %d %d %s\n", <newlines>, <words>, <bytes>, <file>

       If the -m option is specified, the number of characters shall replace the <bytes> field in this format.

       If  any  options  are specified and the -l option is not specified, the number of <newline>s shall not be
       written.

       If any options are specified and the -w option is not  specified,  the  number  of  words  shall  not  be
       written.

       If  any options are specified and neither -c nor -m is specified, the number of bytes or characters shall
       not be written.

       If no input file operands are specified, no name shall be written and no <blank>s preceding the  pathname
       shall be written.

       If more than one input file operand is specified, an additional line shall be written, of the same format
       as the other lines, except that the word total (in the POSIX  locale)  shall  be  written  instead  of  a
       pathname  and  the total of each column shall be written as appropriate. Such an additional line, if any,
       is written at the end of the output.


STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.


OUTPUT FILES
       None.


EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.


EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     An error occurred.


CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.


APPLICATION USAGE
       The -m option is not a switch, but an option at the same level as -c. Thus, to produce the  full  default
       output with character counts instead of bytes, the command required is:

              wc -mlw


EXAMPLES
       None.


RATIONALE
       The output file format pseudo- printf() string differs from the System V version of wc:

              "%7d%7d%7d %s\n"

       which  produces  possibly  ambiguous and unparsable results for very large files, as it assumes no number
       shall exceed six digits.

       Some historical implementations use only <space>, <tab>, and <newline> as word separators. The equivalent
       of the ISO C standard isspace() function is more appropriate.

       The  -c  option  stands for "character" count, even though it counts bytes. This stems from the sometimes
       erroneous historical view that bytes and characters are the same size. Due to international requirements,
       the -m option (reminiscent of "multi-byte") was added to obtain actual character counts.

       Early  proposals  only  specified the results when input files were text files. The current specification
       more closely matches historical practice. (Bytes, words, and <newline>s are counted  separately  and  the
       results are written when an end-of-file is detected.)

       Historical  implementations  of  the wc utility only accepted one argument to specify the options -c, -l,
       and -w. Some of them also had multiple occurrences of an option  cause  the  corresponding  count  to  be
       written  multiple  times and had the order of specification of the options affect the order of the fields
       on output, but did not document either of these.  Because common usage either  specifies  no  options  or
       only  one  option,  and  because  none  of  this  was  documented, the changes required by this volume of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 should not break many historical applications  (and  do  not  break  any  historical
       conforming applications).


FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.


SEE ALSO
       cksum


       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition,
       Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open  Group  Base
       Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
       Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the  original  IEEE  and
       The  Open  Group  Standard,  the  original  IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .