How to count lines, words, and characters with wc

Published 2025-10-20 14:24:39 UTC


How to count lines, words, and characters with wc


The `wc` command (word count) reports line, word, and character counts in files.


To count lines in a file:

wc -l <FILE>
To count words:
wc -w <FILE>
To count characters:
wc -m <FILE>
Running without flags gives all three.