Lesson 3	The wc command
Objective	Use `wc` to count lines, words, and characters.

Unix wc Command

The wc command is used to count the number of lines, words, and characters in a file. Observe what happens when you run the wc command on the following file.

$ cat letter
Dear Mom, 
Final exams are coming up next week. 
Please send food, clothes, and 
money. 
Love, 
Susan 
$ wc letter 
9 17 101 letter

The wc command tells you that this file has 9 lines, 17 words, and 101 characters. You can display only the number of lines by using the –l option, the number of words by using the –w option, or the number of characters by using the –c option. Here is the wc command using the –l option:

$ wc –l letter 
9 letter

wc (word count) Command

In Unix shell programming, the `wc` (word count) command is commonly used for counting the number of lines, words, and characters in a text file. The usage of this command can be understood as follows, although variations might exist depending on the specific Unix version or shell environment.

Count Lines: To count the number of lines in a file, you would use the `-l` option with the `wc` command. For example:
```
wc -l filename.txt
```
This command would output the number of lines present in `filename.txt`.
Count Words: If you're interested in counting the number of words, the `-w` option is used. For instance:
```
wc -w filename.txt
```
This would display the total word count of `filename.txt`.
Count Characters: To count the number of characters, the `-c` option can be employed. For example:
```
wc -c filename.txt
```
This command returns the number of characters (including whitespace) in `filename.txt`.
Combined Counts: It's also possible to combine these options to get a line, word, and character count in one command:
```
wc -lwc filename.txt
```
This would produce an output showing the line count, word count, and character count, respectively.
Output Format: Typically, the output of the `wc` command is a number followed by the filename. In cases where no filename is specified, or when using a pipe, it simply returns the count.
Counting Bytes: Additionally, if you need to count bytes rather than characters, you can use the `-m` option:
```
wc -m filename.txt
```
Usage in Scripts: The `wc` command is often used in shell scripts for processing text data. Its simplicity and versatility make it a handy tool in many text processing tasks.

It's important to note that the behavior of `wc` might slightly differ on different Unix-like systems or under different shell environments. Therefore, consulting the man pages (`man wc`) on your specific system might provide more precise information.

Saving the line count in a variable

To save the number of lines to a variable, embed the wc command in an assignment statement. -
The next lesson demonstrates sorting the content of a text file using the sort command.

WC Command - Exercise

Click the exercise link below to practice using the find and wc commands.
WC Command - Exercise