The wc (word count) command in Linux is used to count lines, words, and characters in a text file or input. It can be very helpful for quickly summarizing the content of files.

Basic Syntax

wc [options] [file...]

Common Options

• -l : Counts only the number of lines.
• -w : Counts only the number of words.
• -c : Counts only the number of bytes (characters).
• -m : Counts only the number of characters (useful for multibyte characters).
• -L : Displays the length of the longest line in the input.

Examples with Output

Example 1: Counting Lines, Words, and Characters

Suppose you have a file named file.txt with the following content:

Hello World
This is a test file.
It contains multiple lines and words.

Command

wc file.txt

Output

      3      12      65 file.txt

Explanation:

• 3 is the number of lines in the file.
• 12 is the number of words.
• 65 is the number of characters (including spaces and newline characters).

Example 2: Counting Only Lines

To count only the lines in the file, use the -l option.

Command

wc -l file.txt

Output

      3 file.txt

Explanation:

• The output indicates that there are 3 lines in file.txt.

Example 3: Counting Only Words

To count only the words, use the -w option.

Command

wc -w file.txt

Output

     12 file.txt

Explanation:

• This shows that there are 12 words in file.txt.

Example 4: Counting Only Characters

To count the characters (bytes), use the -c option.

Command

wc -c file.txt

Output

     65 file.txt

Explanation:

• This indicates that there are 65 characters in file.txt.

Example 5: Counting Only the Longest Line

To find the length of the longest line, use the -L option.

Command

wc -L file.txt

Output

      42

Explanation:

• The output shows that the longest line in file.txt is 42 characters long.

Example 6: Counting Multiple Files

You can also count lines, words, and characters in multiple files at once. Suppose you have another file, file2.txt:

This is the second file.
It has a different number of words.

Command

wc file.txt file2.txt

Output

      3      12      65 file.txt
      2      10      60 file2.txt
      5      22     125 total

Explanation:

• The output shows counts for each file followed by a total count for all files combined.

Summary of Common wc Commands

The wc command is a simple yet powerful tool for summarizing text files and understanding their content in Linux.