How to Get a Character Count in Unix

May 30, 2021

1 minute

If you want to find out how many characters are in a file here's how! You can also get a word count in Unix which is useful if you need to keep track of more than just individual characters.

h/unix • 13 guides

h/code • 69 guides

Change directories to the directory where your target file is located, then type:

wc -l filename

replacing filename with the actual name of your file.

This should output:

$ wc -m test.php
427 test.php

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John (304)

Nov 19, 2020

2 minutes

This short guide will show you how to change you default shell on unix based operating systems.

Use wc -m to count the characters in a file