wc command in linux with flags

wc command in linux allows you to print a count of new lines, words and bytes for each input file. You can also use various flags to print.

wc command in linux with | flags | Examples

wc command in linux

Hello, guys Today I am going to show you how you can use the "wc" command in Linux.

"wc" command prints a count of new lines, words and bytes for each input file.

You can use "wc" command with a file and it's going to show you the number of lines, number of words and number of characters in the file.

So let's see how You can use it,

wc command

For example, I have a file "demo.txt" file. I am going to give "wc demo.txt" and press ENTER 

wc command

$wc fileName

Now you can see it gives this kind of output.

The first output here is "1" and this is the number of line in this file. "5" indicates No.of words in the file and then the third is the No.of characters here so the total number of character in this file is "21".

Using flags with wc Command

You can use certain flags in "wc" command which will give you specifically what you want.

[-c] flag

wc command with -c flag

$wc -c fileName

If you want to print only the No.of character then you can just use a flag called "-c" and this is going to print only the number of characters.

[-l] flag

wc command with -l flag

$wc -l fileName

If you want to count the number of lines you can just use the "-l" flag with "wc" command and then press ENTER it gives you No.of lines.

[-w] flag

wc command with -w flag

$wc -w fileName

If you are going to use "-w" flag. It's going to give you the number of words only.

[-L] flag

wc command with -L flag

$wc -L fileName

You can also use a flag called "-L" and this prints the No.of character in the longest line.

Conclusion

So these are the flag you can use with the WC command.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, THANK YOU.

HAVE A NICE DAY💕