The wc command in unix/linux is used to print the number of characters, words, bytes and newlines of files or standard input.
Syntax
wc [OPTION] [FILE]
Here we will test the commands on a file named song.txt, which contains some lyrics. To view the contents of song.txt lets use the cat command
$ cat song.txt
Master, master, where's the dreams that I've been after?
Master, master, you promised only lies
Laughter, laughter, all I hear or see is laughter
Laughter, laughter, laughing at my cries
Fix Me
1. Display Number of Bytes
Enter wc command with -c option to print no. of bytes in a file.
$ wc -c song.txt
194 song.txt
2. Display Number of Words
Enter wc followed with -w option to print the no. of words in a file
$ wc -w song.txt
32 song.txt
3. Display Number of Characters
Enter wc with -m option to print no. of characters in a file
$ wc -m song.txt
194 song.txt
4. Display Number of New lines
Enter wc with -l option to print the no. of new lines in the file.
$ wc -l song.txt
5 filename
5. Display Length of the longest line
Enter wc with -L option to print the no. of characters in the longest line of the file
$ wc -L song.txt
56 song.txt
6. Display All
Enter wc and filename without any option will show in the following column order: 1st column- newlines count, 2nd column- words count and 3rd column- character count.
$ wc song.txt
5 32 194 song.txt
$ wc song.txt song2.txt #for multiple files
5 32 194 song.txt
10 57 297 song2.txt
15 89 491 total
Just entering the wc command waits for you to enter some text and after you have written the text press ctrl+d to end writing. wc counts number of lines, words and bytes
$ wc
welcome to TechInfected 0 3 23
the newline count is 0 because there is only one line and no newlines.