# Count the number of words (file or STDIN)
wc -w /path/to/foo.txt
cat /path/to/foo.txt | wc -w

# Count the number of lines (file or STDIN)
wc -l /path/to/foo.txt
cat /path/to/foo.txt | wc -l

# Count the number of bytes (file or STDIN)
wc -c /path/to/foo.txt
cat /path/to/foo.txt | wc -c

# Count files and directories at a given location
ls -l | wc -l

# If you ever use `wc` in a shell script and need to compare the output with an int you can
# clean the output (wc returns extra characters around the integer) by using xargs:
ls -l | wc -l | xargs