HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

w
wc(1) wc(1)
NAME
wc - count words, lines, and bytes or characters in a file
SYNOPSIS
wc [-c-m][
-lw][file]...
DESCRIPTION
The
wc command counts lines, words, and bytes or characters in the named files, or in the standard input if
no file names are specified. It also keeps a total count for all named files.
A word is a string of characters delimited by spaces, tabs, or newlines.
Options
wc recognizes the following options:
-c Report the number of bytes in each input file.
-l Report the number of newline characters in each input file.
-m Report the number of characters in each input file.
-w Report the number of words in each input file.
The c and m options are mutually exclusive. Otherwise, the l, w, and c
or m options can be used in any
combination to specify that a subset of lines, words, and bytes or characters are to be reported.
When any option is specified,
wc reports only the information requested. If no option is specified, the
default output is -lwc.
When a file is specified on the command line, its name is printed along with the counts.
Standard Output (XPG4 only)
By default, the standard output contains an entry for each input file in the form:
newlines words bytes file
If the -m option is specified, the number of characters replaces the bytes field in this format.
If any option is specified, the fields for the unspecified options are omitted.
If no file operand is specified, neither the file name nor the preceding blank character is written.
If more than one file operand is specified, an additional line is written at the end of the output, of the same
format as the other lines, except that the word
total (in the POSIX locale) is written instead of a file
name and the total of each column is written as appropriate.
EXIT STATUS
wc exits with one of the following values:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LC_CTYPE determines the range of graphics and space characters, and the interpretation of text as single-
and/or multibyte characters.
LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed.
If LC_CTYPE or LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is null, they default to the value of
LANG.
If LANG is not specified or is null, it defaults to C (see lang(5)).
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, they all default to C. See environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported. with a newline character, the count will be off by
one.
HP-UX 11i Version 1: September 2005 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1−−1057