I agree, it's better this way - with the prospect that the locale support might be added some day.
On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 12:03:31PM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi, > > i'm certainly not known for enthusiasm with respect to multibyte > character support, but wc(1) is one example of a program where > respecting LC_CTYPE would really make sense even to me, so i > consider it a bug that wc -m currently is an alias for wc -c. > > I'm proposing the somewhat simpler patch below for now. > > * No need to change .Nd. Counting characters is among the > standardized purposes of wc(1), knowing that is useful > for people developing shell scripts on OpenBSD because > their scripts might do that when run elsewhere, and hopefully > one day, they will even on OpenBSD. > > * No need to change [-c | -m] to [-cm] in the SYNOPSIS. > even though our implementation currently doesn't enforce > it, you should code like that for portability. > > * No need to specifically state that -c and -m are mutually > exclusive, it's already clear from the SYNOPSIS, POSIX > doesn't stress it explicitly either, and at least as long > as we don't enforce it, it seems counter-productive to > over-emphasize it. > > * No need to remove "(or characters)" from the format > description. In the (only supported) C/POSIX locale, > bytes and characters are synonyms, so it isn't wrong, > and it does no harm to hint at how character counts > are supposed to be displayed. > > OK? > Ingo > > > Index: wc.1 > =================================================================== > RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.bin/wc/wc.1,v > retrieving revision 1.23 > diff -u -r1.23 wc.1 > --- wc.1 15 Nov 2014 13:55:25 -0000 1.23 > +++ wc.1 2 Jan 2015 10:48:23 -0000 > @@ -72,8 +72,9 @@ > The number of lines in each input file > is written to the standard output. > .It Fl m > -The number of characters in each input file > -is written to the standard output. > +Intended to count characters instead of bytes; > +currently an alias for > +.Fl c . > .It Fl w > The number of words in each input file > is written to the standard output. > @@ -85,11 +86,6 @@ > The default action is equivalent to the flags > .Fl clw > having been specified. > -The > -.Fl c > -and > -.Fl m > -options are mutually exclusive. > .Pp > If no file names are specified, the standard input is used > and a file name is not output. > @@ -103,11 +99,6 @@ > lines words bytes file_name > .Ed > .Pp > -If the > -.Fl m > -option is specified, > -the number of bytes is replaced by > -the number of characters in the listing above. > The counts for lines, words, and bytes > .Pq or characters > are integers separated by spaces. > @@ -120,7 +111,7 @@ > .Nm > utility is compliant with the > .St -p1003.1-2008 > -specification. > +specification, except that it ignores the locale. > .Pp > The flag > .Op Fl h > @@ -130,3 +121,7 @@ > .Nm > utility appeared in > .At v1 . > +.Sh BUGS > +The > +.Fl m > +option counts bytes instead of characters.
