How to Find the Line Count of a File in Linux Bash

1. Use wc to Count Number of Lines in Bash
2. Use grep to Count Number of Lines in Bash
3. Use cat to Count Number of Lines in Bash
4. Use sed to Count Number of Lines in Bash
5. Use awk to Count Number of Lines in Bash
6. Use nl to Count Number of Lines in Bash

This article will explain how to find the line count of a file in Linux Bash. We will give example usages of wc, grep, cat, sed, awk, and nl tools.

There is more than one way to find the number of lines in Linux. Let’s create our sample file and count its line numbers using different tools.

Below is the content of the file we will use in this example. Save it as example.txt.

line1
line2
line3
line4
line5

Use wc to Count Number of Lines in Bash

The -l parameter of the wc command returns the number of lines.

wc -l < example.txt

Use grep to Count Number of Lines in Bash

The -c parameter of the grep command returns the number of lines.

grep "" -c example.txt

Use cat to Count Number of Lines in Bash

The cat command prints the file contents to the console in numbered format with the -n parameter. We get the last line with the tail command, and with awk, we get the line number.

cat -n example.txt | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}'

Use sed to Count Number of Lines in Bash

We can find the number of file lines with the following use of the sed command.

sed -n '$=' example.txt

Use awk to Count Number of Lines in Bash

The awk tool can be used to find the number of file lines.

awk 'END{print NR}' example.txt

Use nl to Count Number of Lines in Bash

The nl command prints the file contents to the console in numbered format with the -n parameter. We get the last line with the tail command, and with awk, we get the line number.

nl example.txt | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}'