wc command with examples in Linux / Unix
wc command is used to print number of lines, words and bytes in a file. The abbreviation of wc is word count. wc command is the most easy way to find number of lines in a file. Mostly every one use wc command to find number of lines in a file.
In the below example wc command prints the number of lines, words and character present in the /etc/passwd file.
#wc /etc/passwd
123 165 5261 /etc/passwd
| | |
| | |
| | |_____Their are total of 5261 character in /etc/passwd file.
| |
| |______Their are total of 165 words in /etc/passwd file.
|
|_______ Their are total of 123 lines in /etc/passwd file.
Options of wc command:
-c — Prints the byte counts
-l — Prints the line counts
-w — Prints the word counts
-L — Print the length of the longest line
How to find number of lines in a file
#wc -l /etc/passwd
How to find number of words in a file
#wc -l /etc/passwd
How to find number of character in a file
#wc -c /etc/passwd
How to find the length of the longest line
#wc -L /etc/passwd
