Table of Contents

Shell Data Processing - (WC|Word Count) command (Line count)

About

The wc command is a filter that prints on one line sequentially the number of:

from:

Example

With Standard Input from a pipeline

/bin/echo -e 'Hello\nWorld' > hello.txt
# -e takes the sequence character \n has an end of line

Hello
World


cat hello.txt | wc # read from the input stream created by cat

2       2      12

With Manual Standard Input (Copy / Paste )

wc -

Example when copy/pasting 

The wc command is a filter that prints on one line sequentially the number of:

newlines (lines),
words,
and characters


5      20     120 -

With a file as argument

When using a file name as argument 

wc hello.txt # transform hello.txt as an input stream and read 

2  2 12 hello.txt

With a glob pattern that select files as argument

with a a glob pattern that select all files that begins with hello 

wc hello*

2  2 12 hello.txt
 1  2 12 helloIn.txt
 1  2 12 helloOut.txt
 4  6 36 total

Syntax

wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...

where option can be