What does wc do? And how do you use it to count words in a file? [duplicate]

I'm new to the Linux/Unix world but found this decent online resource that's sort of explains some general command line code. I'm running an Oracle VM with Ubuntu based variant. I'm away from my computer now so I don't know which version but I'm fairly certain it's bash4

1 Answer

WC (Word Count) is a simple command line utility that displays the number of words in a file. It is especially useful for text files. Word documents, Libre office documents etc are a different matter.

Simply type 'wc ' and it will output the number of words in the file. If you need more information, type 'man wc' in a terminal and it will show you the full list of options.