Re: wc -l is not working the way it should

[Steven Schubiger]

Rahman, Syed A  <address@hidden> wrote:
> The wc seems not working correctly, say for example
> wc -l filename | cut -c1-8 
> should only give the lines, but this your version of wc, behaves
> differently. for small size files it does not reserve first 8 colums for
> size so get the file name as well
> 
> All others give this
> $ wc -l test.ksh | cut -c1-8
>       14
> 
> Your version gives this----
> $ wc -l test.ksh | cut -c1-8
> 14 test.

I don't think this counts as a bug in wc; it looks (imho) intentional.
I see similar "behavior" with wc as of version 5.97 (coreutils).

Can someone else shed some more light?

Steven Schubiger