We continue to use the file file.txt test data we used in Entry Level post:

Word Counter

The wc command by default outputs the number of newlines, words, and bytes of the file:

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wc file.txt

Byte Counts

We can add the -c or –bytes parameter to output the file’s byte counts:

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wc -c file.txt
wc --bytes file.txt

Character Counts

We can add the -m or –chars parameter to output the file’s character counts:

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wc -m file.txt
wc --chars file.txt

Word Counts

We can add the -w or –words parameter to output the file’s word counts:

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wc -w file.txt
wc --words file.txt

Newline Counts

We can add the -l or –lines parameter to output the file’s line counts:

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wc -l file.txt
wc --lines file.txt

Sorted Result

Sorts One File Contents in Ascending Order

We can use the sort command to sort the letters of the file contents:

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sort file.txt

Sorts Multiple File Contents in Ascending Order

We can sort multiple files at the same time:

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sort file1 file2 file.txt

Sorts Contents in Descending Order

We can add the -r or –reverse parameter to sort the contents of the file in descending order:

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sort -r file.txt
sort --reverse file.txt

Sorts Numeric Contents in Ascending Order

Before we start, we need to prepare a file with numeric contents:

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echo 123 >> num_file
echo 1234 >> num_file
echo 12 >> num_file
echo 1 >> num_file
echo 21 >> num_file
echo 4321 >> num_file
echo 4231 >> num_file
echo 3241 >> num_file
cat num_file

We can add the -n, –numeric-sort or –sort=numeric parameter to sort the integer number of the file contents in ascending order.

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sort -n num_file
sort --numeric-sort num_file
sort --sort=numeric num_file

Sorts Numeric Contents in Descending Order

We can add the -n, –numeric-sort or –sort=numeric with a -r or –reverse parameter to sort the integer number of the file contents in ascending order.

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sort -n -r num_file
sort --numeric-sort --reverse num_file
sort --sort=numeric --reverse num_file

References 6.1 wc: Print newline, word, and byte counts, 7.1 sort: Sort text files

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