The command wc < sample.txt will count data from the file sample.txt.

Question

The command wc < sample.txt will count data from the file sample.txt.

(a) True

(b) False

I have been asked this question in examination.

My enquiry is from Redirection and Pipes in portion The Shell of Unix

Answer 1

The correct option is (a) True

To explain I would say: When wc is used without any arguments it will read the data from the default source which is a keyboard. In the above command, redirection symbol < is present. The following steps are performed:

1. On seeing the <, the shell opens the disk file, sample.txt for reading.

2. wc performs its execution and displays the output.