Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> writes:

> On 13/07/2026 18:55, Collin Funk wrote:
>> Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> writes:
>> 
>>> On 13/07/2026 01:20, Dan Jacobson wrote:
>>>> NAME
>>>>          wc - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file
>>>>                                    ^character,
>>>
>>> The above was trying to summarize the functionality and default mode.
>>> If you add character, then you'd probably have to also mention the -L
>>> functionality, i.e.:
>>>
>>> wc - print newline, word, byte, character counts, or maximum line width
>>>
>>> It's a bit wordy TBH, so I'm not sure.
>> I couldn't think of a way to make it not sound wordy either. POSIX
>> has
>> this [1]:
>>     wc - word, line, and byte or character count
>> But that sounds a little strange to me. I think it is the double
>> conjunctions, "and" and "or".
>> Collin
>> [1]
>> https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/wc.html
>
> It's a bit better than what we have,
> so let's just go with the POSIX wording.

Applying the following patch makes the lines in the info pages too
long. Not sure if you have an idea to avoid that.

diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index 5cc831f84..8d3f70a35 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@
 * uptime: (coreutils)uptime invocation.         Print uptime and load.
 * users: (coreutils)users invocation.           Print current user names.
 * vdir: (coreutils)vdir invocation.             List directories verbosely.
-* wc: (coreutils)wc invocation.                 Line, word, and byte counts.
+* wc: (coreutils)wc invocation.                 Line, word, and byte or 
character counts.
 * who: (coreutils)who invocation.               Print who is logged in.
 * whoami: (coreutils)whoami invocation.         Print effective user ID.
 * yes: (coreutils)yes invocation.               Print a string indefinitely.
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ @node Top
 
 Summarizing files
 
-* wc invocation::                Print newline, word, and byte counts
+* wc invocation::                Print newline, word, and byte or charcter 
counts
 * sum invocation::               Print checksum and block counts
 * cksum invocation::             Print CRC checksum and byte counts
 * md5sum invocation::            Print or check MD5 digests
diff --git a/man/wc.x b/man/wc.x
index e1d9b4bf7..6ff1f819d 100644
--- a/man/wc.x
+++ b/man/wc.x
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 [NAME]
-wc \- print newline, word, and byte counts for each file
+wc \- print newline, word, and byte or character counts for each file
 [DESCRIPTION]
 .\" Add any additional description here

Collin



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