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LINUX COMMANDS  18 I  TecMint :     

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6 WC Command Examples to Count Number of Lines, Words, Start learning Linux in minutes 

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The wc (word count) command in Unix/Linux operating systems is used to nd out number of newline count, +

word count, byte and characters count in a les speci ed by the le arguments. The syntax of wc command as
shown below.

0

# wc [options] filenames

0
The following are the options and usage provided by the command.
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wc -l : Prints the number of lines in a file. 2 Exam Study Guide to LFCS and LFCE
wc -w : prints the number of words in a file.
wc
wc
-c
-m
:
:
Displays the count of bytes in a file.
prints the count of characters from a file. 
wc -L : prints only the length of the longest line in a file.  

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So, let’s see how we can use the ‘wc‘ command with their few available arguments and examples in this article.
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We have used the ‘tecmint.txt‘ le for testing the commands. Let’s nd out the output of the le using cat
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[root@tecmint ~]# cat tecmint.txt

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1. A Basic Example of WC Command
The ‘wc‘ command without passing any parameter will display a basic result of ”tecmint.txt‘ le. The three
numbers shown below are 12 (number of lines), 16 (number of words) and 112 (number of bytes) of the le.

[root@tecmint ~]# wc tecmint.txt

12 16 112 tecmint.txt

2. Count Number of Lines

To count number of newlines in a le use the option ‘-l‘, which prints the number of lines from a given le. Say,
the following command will display the count of newlines in a le. In the output the rst led assigned as count
and second eld is the name of le.

[root@tecmint ~]# wc -l tecmint.txt

12 tecmint.txt
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3. Display Number of Words

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Using ‘-w‘ argument with ‘wc‘ command prints the number of words in a le. Type the following command to
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count the words in a le.
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[root@tecmint ~]# wc -w tecmint.txt Certi cation Course (96% Off)
16 tecmint.txt

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4. Count Number of Bytes and Characters  Ending In: 4 days

When using options ‘-c‘ and ‘-m‘ with ‘wc‘ command will print the total number of bytes and characters
respectively in a le. LINUX EBOOKS

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[root@tecmint ~]# wc -c tecmint.txt from Zero to Hero

112 tecmint.txt RedHat RHCE/RHCSA Certi cation Preparation
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[root@tecmint ~]# wc -m tecmint.txt
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112 tecmint.txt
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5. Display Length of Longest Line Django Setup Guide for Linux
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The ‘wc‘ command allow an argument ‘-L‘, it can be used to print out the length of longest (number of
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characters) line in a le. So, we have the longest character line (‘Scienti c Linux‘) in a le.

[root@tecmint ~]# wc -L tecmint.txt     

16 tecmint.txt
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6. Check More WC Options Join Our Community Of 150,000+ Linux Lovers
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For more information and help on the wc command, simple run the ‘wc –help‘ or ‘man wc‘ from the command
line. YES! SIGN ME UP

[root@tecmint ~]# wc --help

Usage: wc [OPTION]... [FILE]...
or: wc [OPTION]... --files0-from=F
Print newline, word, and byte counts for each FILE, and a total line if
more than one FILE is specified. With no FILE, or when FILE is -,
read standard input.
-c, --bytes print the byte counts
-m, --chars print the character counts
-l, --lines print the newline counts
-L, --max-line-length print the length of the longest line
-w, --words print the word counts
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit
Report wc bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
For complete documentation, run: info coreutils 'wc invocation'