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35 .\" @(#)wc.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
43 .Nd word, line, and byte count
51 utility displays the number of lines, words, and bytes contained in each
54 (or standard input, by default) to the standard output.
55 A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline>
57 and a word is defined as a string of characters delimited by white space
59 White space characters are the set of characters for which the
61 function returns true.
62 If more than one input file is specified, a line of cumulative counts
63 for all the files is displayed on a separate line after the output for
66 The following options are available:
69 The number of bytes in each input file
70 is written to the standard output.
72 The number of lines in each input file
73 is written to the standard output.
75 The number of words in each input file
76 is written to the standard output.
79 When an option is specified,
81 only reports the information requested by that option.
82 The default action is equivalent to specifying all of the flags.
84 If no files are specified, the standard input is used and no
85 file name is displayed.
89 utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
95 utility was documented to define a word as a ``maximal string of
96 characters delimited by <space>, <tab> or <newline> characters''.
97 The implementation, however, didn't handle non-printing characters
98 correctly so that `` ^D^E '' counted as 6 spaces, while ``foo^D^Ebar''
99 counted as 8 characters.
100 4BSD systems after 4.3BSD modified the implementation to be consistent
101 with the documentation.
102 This implementation defines a ``word'' in terms of the
104 function, as required by