[contras1970]

i wonder why he has the "wrapper over wc" which does just what wc does?

    #!/bin/sh

    total=0

    for FILE in `find . -type f -name "*.txt"`

    do
        wc -w $FILE
        words=`wc -w < $FILE | tr -d ' '`
        total=$(($total + $words))
    done

    printf "%'d" $total

    echo " words"

all this achieves is

    wc -w $(find . type f -name "*.txt") | sed '$s/total/words/'

and frankly, i'm not sure the total->words substitution is worth the trouble.

then there's the inefficiency of running wc twice per file. while this is not exactly bitcoin-level disaster, it rubs me the wrong way...

    wc -w $(find . type f -name "*.txt") |
    awk -v t=0 '
      { print; t += $1 } 
      END { print t, "words"; }
    ' 

personally i'd just do this (in zsh):

    wc -w **/*.txt(.D)

the (.D) is two "glob qualifiers": the . (dot) limits the result to plain files, the D turns GLOB_DOTS on for the pattern.