xwc

xwc is a small wc-style command line tool for counting lines, bytes, and optionally words, characters, or maximum line length.

By default it prints line and byte counts with headings:

$ printf 'one two\nthree\n' | xwc
lines  bytes
2      14

Install

Recommended, using prebuilt release binaries and cargo-binstall:

$ cargo binstall xwc

Fallback, building from source with Cargo:

$ cargo --locked install xwc

Usage

$ xwc [OPTIONS] [FILE]...

When no files are provided, xwc reads from standard input. Use - as a file argument to read from standard input alongside file paths.

Options:

• -l, --lines: print only the newline count.
• -c, --bytes: print only the byte count.
• -w, --words: print only the word count.
• -m, --chars: print only the UTF-8 character count.
• --longest-line: print only the longest line length.
• -A, --all: print all counts.
• -W, --include-words: include the word count in the default output columns (slower).
• -M, --include-chars: include the UTF-8 character count in the default output columns.
• --include-longest-line: include the longest line length in the default output columns.
• -h, --human-readable: print byte counts with human-readable units and use the size heading.
• --self-profile: include per-input counting duration in the output.
• -j, --jobs <N>: set the worker count for multiple input files. By default, xwc starts parallel counting after 3 input files.
• --glob <PATTERN>: add files matching a glob pattern. Can be used more than once.
• --sort-by <COLUMN>: sort file rows by lines, words, chars, max-line, bytes, file, or duration.
• --sort-order <ORDER>: set output sort order to asc or desc.
• --help: print help.

Examples:

$ xwc Cargo.toml src/main.rs
lines  bytes  file
8      174    Cargo.toml
420    10324  src/main.rs
428    10498  total

$ xwc --include-words Cargo.toml
lines  words  bytes  file
8      24     174    Cargo.toml

$ printf 'café\n' | xwc -m
5

$ printf 'one\nthree\ncafé\n' | xwc --longest-line
5

$ printf 'one\nthree\ncafé\n' | xwc --include-longest-line
lines  max-line  bytes
3      5         16

$ printf 'café\n' | xwc -M
lines  chars  bytes
1      5      6

$ printf 'café\n' | xwc --all
lines  words  chars  max-line  bytes
1      1      5      4         6

$ xwc -hc Cargo.toml
174B  Cargo.toml

$ xwc --glob 'src/*.rs'
lines  bytes  file
216    5266   src/lib.rs
613    15509  src/main.rs
829    20775  total

Performance

Some basic hyperfine results xwc against wc:

Case	xwc is ...
4 KiB single file, lines + bytes	slightly slower
1 MiB single file, lines only	faster
64 MiB single file, bytes only	slightly slower
64 MiB single file, words	faster
8 MiB UTF-8 file, chars	much faster
16 x 64 KiB files, lines + bytes	tied
8 x 8 MiB files, lines + bytes	much faster
8 x 8 MiB files, xwc -j1	much faster

Development

Just:

$ just xwc --include-words Cargo.toml

Cargo:

$ cargo run -- [OPTIONS] [FILE]...

Common development recipes:

$ just fmt check test-no-coverage