wc

What it does

wc (word count) reports the number of lines, words, and bytes in input. It is commonly used for quick statistics and validation.

Quick Start

# Count lines, words, bytes
wc file.txt

# Count only lines
wc -l file.txt

Examples

# Count words
wc -w file.txt

# Count characters
wc -m file.txt

# Count multiple files
wc file1.txt file2.txt

# Use in pipeline
cat file.txt | wc -l

Notes

• -l lines, -w words, -c bytes, -m characters
• Useful for validation and quick stats