The UNIX word count command, wc, is used to count the number of lines, words, and characters in a file. Say you have a file called letter seen here:

$ cat letter
Dear Mom,
Final exams are coming up next week.
Please send food and money.
Love,
Susan

$ wc letter
       8      16      90 letter

The wc command tells you that this file has 8 line, 16 words, and 90 characters. You can display just the number of lines using the –l option, the number of words by using the –w option, or the number of characters by using the –c option. Here is the same command using the –l option:

$ wc –l letter
8 letter