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WC(1P)			   POSIX Programmer's Manual			WC(1P)

PROLOG
       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the	 corresponding
       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
       not be implemented on Linux.

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> characters, 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
       POSIX.1‐2008, 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>  charac‐
		 ters 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	speci‐
		 fied, the standard input shall be used.

STDIN
       The standard input shall be used if no file operands are specified, and
       shall be used if a file operand is '−' and  the	implementation	treats
       the '−' as meaning standard input.  Otherwise, the standard input shall
       not be used.  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	 vari‐
		 ables	that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
		 ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization	 Vari‐
		 ables	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	 char‐
		 acters.

       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> characters 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> characters 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  require‐
       ments,  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 prac‐
       tice. (Bytes, words, and <newline> characters  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 POSIX.1‐2008 should not break many historical	appli‐
       cations (and do not break any historical conforming applications).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       cksum

       The  Base  Definitions  volume  of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
       Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in  electronic  form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
       -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX),	The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
       cal and Electronics Engineers,  Inc  and	 The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the	2013  Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) 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.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting  errors that appear in this page are
       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
       files  to  man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
       nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group		     2013				WC(1P)
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