Bash wc Command - Count Lines, Words and Characters

Using the wc Command

The wc (word count) command counts lines, words and characters (bytes) in a file.

All examples below use this file, notes.txt:

Bash is a shell.
It runs commands.
It runs scripts too.

Basic Usage

Without options, wc prints three numbers: lines, words and bytes, followed by the file name:

wc notes.txt
 3 11 56 notes.txt

Count Lines (-l)

Use -l to count only the lines:

wc -l notes.txt
3 notes.txt

Count Words (-w)

Use -w to count only the words. Words are separated by spaces or new lines:

wc -w notes.txt
11 notes.txt

Count Characters (-c and -m)

Use -c to count bytes. Use -m to count characters. The result is different only when the text has special characters, like é or emoji, that use more than one byte:

wc -c notes.txt
56 notes.txt

Count Several Files

Give wc more than one file, and it counts each file and adds a total:

wc -l notes.txt names.txt
 3 notes.txt
 3 names.txt
 6 total

Use wc with a Pipe

wc is very often used at the end of a pipe, to count results from another command.

When wc reads from a pipe, it prints just the number:

ls project | wc -l
6

grep "runs" notes.txt | wc -l
2

Options Overview

• -l: Count lines
• -w: Count words
• -c: Count bytes
• -m: Count characters