OpenBSD-4.6/usr.bin/wc/wc.1

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.\"     from: @(#)wc.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: February 8 2009 $
.Dt WC 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm wc
.Nd word, line, and byte or character count
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm wc
.Op Fl c | m
.Op Fl hlw
.Op Ar file ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility reads one or more input text files, and, by
default, writes the number of lines, words, and bytes
contained in each input file to the standard output.
If more than one input file is specified,
a line of cumulative count(s) for all named files is output on a
separate line following the last file count.
.Nm
considers a word to be a maximal string of characters delimited by
whitespace.
Whitespace characters are the set of characters for which the
.Xr isspace 3
function returns true.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl c
The number of bytes in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.It Fl h
Use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte,
Petabyte, and Exabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to four or fewer
using powers of 2 for sizes (K=1024, M=1048576, etc.).
.It Fl l
The number of lines in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.It Fl m
The number of characters in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.It Fl w
The number of words in each input file
is written to the standard output.
.El
.Pp
When an option is specified,
.Nm
only reports the information requested by that option.
The default action is equivalent to the flags
.Fl clw
having been specified.
The
.Fl c
and
.Fl m
options are mutually exclusive.
.Pp
If no file names are specified, the standard input is used
and a file name is not output.
The resulting output is one
line of the requested count(s) with the cumulative sum
of all files read in via standard input.
.Pp
By default, the standard output contains a line for each
input file of the form:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
lines	 words	bytes	file_name
.Ed
.Pp
If the
.Fl m
option is specified,
the number of bytes is replaced by
the number of characters in the listing above.
The counts for lines, words, and bytes
.Pq or characters
are integers separated by spaces.
.Pp
.Ex -std wc
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr isspace 3
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification.
.Pp
The flag
.Op Fl h
is an extension to that specification.
.Pp
Historically, the
.Nm
utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
characters delimited by
.Aq space ,
.Aq tab
or
.Aq newline
characters''.
The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
correctly so that ``  ^D^E  '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
counted as 8 characters.
4BSD systems after 4.3BSD modified the implementation to be consistent
with the documentation.
This implementation defines a
.Dq word
in terms of the
.Xr isspace 3
function, as required by
.St -p1003.2-92 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
utility appeared in
.At v1 .