.\" DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE!  It was generated by help2man 1.50.1.
.TH WC "1" "February 2026" "GNU coreutils 9.10" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
wc \- print newline, word, and byte counts for each file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B wc
[\fI\,OPTION\/\fR]... [\fI\,FILE\/\fR]...
.br
.B wc
[\fI\,OPTION\/\fR]... \fI\,--files0-from=F\/\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
.\" Add any additional description here
.PP
Print newline, word, and byte counts for each FILE, and a total line if
more than one FILE is specified.  A word is a nonempty sequence of non white
space delimited by white space characters or by start or end of input.
.PP
With no FILE, or when FILE is \-, read standard input.
.PP
The options below may be used to select which counts are printed, always in
the following order: newline, word, character, byte, maximum line length.
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc-c'\fB\-c, \-\-bytes\fP\X'tty: link'
print the byte counts
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc-m'\fB\-m, \-\-chars\fP\X'tty: link'
print the character counts
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc-l'\fB\-l, \-\-lines\fP\X'tty: link'
print the newline counts
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc--debug'\fB\-\-debug\fP\X'tty: link'
indicate what line count acceleration is used
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc--files0-from'\fB\-\-files0\-from=F\fP\X'tty: link'
read input from the files specified by
NUL\-terminated names in file F;
If F is \-, read names from standard input
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc-L'\fB\-L, \-\-max\-line\-length\fP\X'tty: link'
print the maximum display width
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc-w'\fB\-w, \-\-words\fP\X'tty: link'
print the word counts
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#wc--total'\fB\-\-total=WHEN\fP\X'tty: link'
when to print a line with total counts;
WHEN can be: auto, always, only, never
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/wc#wc--help'\fB\-\-help\fP\X'tty: link'
display this help and exit
.TP
\X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/wc#wc--version'\fB\-\-version\fP\X'tty: link'
output version information and exit
.SH AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin and David MacKenzie.
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Report bugs to: bug\-coreutils@gnu.org
.br
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
.br
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
.br
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
.br
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/wc>
.br
or available locally via: info \(aq(coreutils) wc invocation\(aq