# cloc *Count Lines of Code* * * * cloc counts blank lines, comment lines, and physical lines of source code in many programming languages. Latest release: v2.08 (Jan. 24, 2026) [![Version](https://img.shields.io/badge/version-2.08-blue.svg)](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc) [![Contributors](https://img.shields.io/github/contributors/AlDanial/cloc.svg)](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/graphs/contributors) [![DOI](https://zenodo.org/badge/doi/10.5281/zenodo.5760076.svg)](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5760076) [![Forks](https://img.shields.io/github/forks/AlDanial/cloc.svg)](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/network/members) [![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/AlDanial/cloc/total.svg)]() cloc moved to GitHub in September 2015 after being hosted at http://cloc.sourceforge.net/ since August 2006. # Quick Start Step 1: Install cloc (see [Install from Github Releases](#install-from-github-releases) and [Install via package manager](#install-via-package-manager)) or run cloc's [docker image](#run-via-docker). The Windows executable has no requirements. The source version of cloc requires a Perl interpreter, and the Docker version of cloc requires a Docker installation. Step 2: Open a terminal (`cmd.exe` on Windows). Step 3: Invoke cloc to count your source files, directories, archives, or git commits. The executable name differs depending on whether you use the development source version (`cloc`), source for a released version (`cloc-2.08.pl`) or a Windows executable (`cloc-2.08.exe`). On this page, `cloc` is the generic term used to refer to any of these. [Include Security](https://www.youtube.com/user/IncludeSecurity) has a [YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRLTkDMsCqs) showing the steps in action. **a file** ``` prompt> cloc hello.c 1 text file. 1 unique file. 0 files ignored. https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.65 T=0.04 s (28.3 files/s, 340.0 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C 1 0 7 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` **a directory** ``` prompt> cloc gcc-5.2.0/gcc/c 16 text files. 15 unique files. 3 files ignored. https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.65 T=0.23 s (57.1 files/s, 188914.0 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C 10 4680 6621 30812 C/C++ Header 3 99 286 496 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 13 4779 6907 31308 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` **an archive** We'll pull cloc's source zip file from GitHub, then count the contents: ``` prompt> wget https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/archive/master.zip prompt> cloc master.zip https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.65 T=0.07 s (26.8 files/s, 141370.3 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perl 2 725 1103 8713 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 2 725 1103 8713 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` **a git repository, using a specific commit** This example uses code from PuDB, a fantastic Python debugger. ``` prompt> git clone https://github.com/inducer/pudb.git prompt> cd pudb prompt> cloc 6be804e07a5db 48 text files. 41 unique files. 8 files ignored. github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.99 T=0.04 s (1054.9 files/s, 189646.8 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Python 28 1519 728 4659 reStructuredText 6 102 20 203 YAML 2 9 2 75 Bourne Shell 3 6 0 17 Text 1 0 0 11 make 1 4 6 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 41 1640 756 4975 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` **each subdirectory of a particular directory** Say you have a directory with three different git-managed projects, Project0, Project1, and Project2. You can use your shell's looping capability to count the code in each. This example uses bash (scroll down for cmd.exe example): ``` prompt> for d in ./*/ ; do (cd "$d" && echo "$d" && cloc --vcs git); done ./Project0/ 7 text files. 7 unique files. 1 file ignored. github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.71 T=0.02 s (390.2 files/s, 25687.6 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- D 4 61 32 251 Markdown 1 9 0 38 make 1 0 0 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 6 70 32 293 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./Project1/ 7 text files. 7 unique files. 0 files ignored. github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.71 T=0.02 s (293.0 files/s, 52107.1 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go 7 165 282 798 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 7 165 282 798 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ./Project2/ 49 text files. 47 unique files. 13 files ignored. github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.71 T=0.10 s (399.5 files/s, 70409.4 lines/s) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Python 33 1226 1026 3017 C 4 327 337 888 Markdown 1 11 0 28 YAML 1 0 2 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 39 1564 1365 3945 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` **each subdirectory of a particular directory (Windows/cmd.exe)** ``` for /D %I in (.\*) do cd %I && cloc --vcs git && cd .. ``` # Overview cloc counts blank lines, comment lines, and physical lines of source code in [many programming languages](#recognized-languages). Given two versions of a code base, cloc can compute differences in blank, comment, and source lines. It is written entirely in Perl with no dependencies outside the standard distribution of Perl v5.6 and higher (code from some external modules is [embedded within cloc](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc#regexp_common)) and so is quite portable. cloc is known to run on many flavors of Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, macOS, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, IRIX, z/OS, and Windows. (To run the Perl source version of cloc on Windows one needs [ActiveState Perl](http://www.activestate.com/activeperl) 5.6.1 or higher, [Strawberry Perl](http://strawberryperl.com/), Windows Subsystem for Linux, [Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com/), [MobaXTerm](http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/) with the Perl plug-in installed, or a mingw environment and terminal such as provided by [Git for Windows](https://gitforwindows.org/). Alternatively one can use the Windows binary of cloc generated with [PAR::Packer](http://search.cpan.org/~rschupp/PAR-Packer-1.019/lib/pp.pm) to run on Windows computers that have neither Perl nor Cygwin.) In addition to counting code in individual text files, directories, and git repositories, cloc can also count code in archive files such as ``.tar`` (including compressed versions), ``.zip``, Python wheel ``.whl``, Jupyter notebook ``.ipynb``, source RPMs ``.rpm`` or ``.src`` (requires ``rpm2cpio``), and Debian ``.deb`` files (requires ``dpkg-deb``). cloc contains code from David Wheeler's [SLOCCount](http://www.dwheeler.com/sloccount/), Damian Conway and Abigail's Perl module [Regexp::Common](http://search.cpan.org/%7Eabigail/Regexp-Common-2.120/lib/Regexp/Common.pm), Sean M. Burke's Perl module [Win32::Autoglob](http://search.cpan.org/%7Esburke/Win32-Autoglob-1.01/Autoglob.pm), and Tye McQueen's Perl module [Algorithm::Diff](http://search.cpan.org/%7Etyemq/Algorithm-Diff-1.1902/lib/Algorithm/Diff.pm). Language scale factors were derived from Mayes Consulting, LLC web site http://softwareestimator.com/IndustryData2.htm. New releases nominally appear every six months. ## Install from Github Releases Grab the latest release of cloc from the [Releases section of this repository](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/releases). ### Source version on Linux/macOS Save the latest source file, for example `cloc-2.08.pl`, as `cloc` (if you prefer the shorter command name) somewhere on your `PATH`. After downloading, make the file executable: ```shell cd ~/Downloads mv cloc-2.08.pl cloc chmod a+rx cloc ./cloc --version # make sure it runs mv cloc ~/bin # for example, if ~/bin is in $PATH ``` ### Source version on Windows You'll need a Perl interpreter such as [Strawberry Perl](http://strawberryperl.com/) installed to run the source version of cloc. After downloading the cloc source file, open a command prompt or PowerShell window, navigate to the download directory (`C:\TEMP` in the example below), then test cloc with: ```dos cd C:\TEMP> C:TEMP\> perl cloc-2.08.pl --version ``` ### Binary version on Windows Download the latest released Windows executable, for example `cloc-2.08.exe` and save it as `cloc.exe` (if desired) in a directory on your `PATH`. There is no binary version for Linux or macOS. ## Install via package manager Depending your operating system, one of these installation methods may work for you (all but the last two entries for Windows require a Perl interpreter): npm install -g cloc # https://www.npmjs.com/package/cloc sudo apt install cloc # Debian, Ubuntu sudo yum install cloc # Red Hat, Fedora sudo dnf install cloc # Fedora 22 or later sudo pacman -S cloc # Arch yay -S cloc-git # Arch AUR (latest git version) sudo emerge -av dev-util/cloc # Gentoo https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/dev-util/cloc sudo apk add cloc # Alpine Linux doas pkg_add cloc # OpenBSD sudo pkg install cloc # FreeBSD sudo port install cloc # macOS with MacPorts brew install cloc # macOS with Homebrew winget install AlDanial.Cloc # Windows with winget (might not work, ref https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/issues/849) choco install cloc # Windows with Chocolatey scoop install cloc # Windows with Scoop **Note**: I don't control any of these packages. If you encounter a bug in cloc using one of the above packages, try with cloc pulled from the latest stable release here on GitHub (link follows below) before submitting a problem report. ## Run via docker These docker commands count lines of code in and below the current directory: ```shell docker run --rm -v $PWD:/tmp aldanial/cloc . ``` ### Run via docker on git-bash ```shell docker run --rm -v "/$(pwd -W)":/tmp aldanial/cloc . ``` ## Development version Download the cloc source code at https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/raw/master/cloc and save it as the file `cloc` (or `cloc.pl`, or whatever executable name you wish). The next step depends on the operating system you're using. # License cloc is licensed under the [GNU General Public License, v 2](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html), excluding portions which are copied from other sources. Code copied from the Regexp::Common, Win32::Autoglob, and Algorithm::Diff Perl modules is subject to the [Artistic License](https://opensource.org/license/artistic-2-0). # Why Use cloc? cloc has many features that make it easy to use, thorough, extensible, and portable: 1. Exists as a single, self-contained file that requires minimal installation effort---just download the file and run it. 2. Can read language comment definitions from a file and thus potentially work with computer languages that do not yet exist. 3. Allows results from multiple runs to be summed together by language and by project. 4. Can produce results in a variety of formats: plain text, Markdown, SQL, JSON, XML, YAML, comma separated values. 5. Can count code within compressed archives (tar balls, Zip files, Java .ear files). 6. Has numerous troubleshooting options. 7. Handles file and directory names with spaces and other unusual characters. 8. Has no dependencies outside the standard Perl distribution. 9. Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, macOS, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, IRIX, and z/OS systems that have Perl 5.6 or higher. The source version runs on Windows with either ActiveState Perl, Strawberry Perl, Cygwin, or MobaXTerm+Perl plugin. Alternatively on Windows one can run the Windows binary which has no dependencies. # Other Counters If cloc does not suit your needs here are other freely available counters to consider: * [loc](https://github.com/cgag/loc/) * [gcloc](https://github.com/JoaoDanielRufino/gcloc) * [gocloc](https://github.com/hhatto/gocloc/) * [Ohcount](https://github.com/blackducksoftware/ohcount/) * [scc](https://github.com/boyter/scc/) * [sclc](https://code.google.com/archive/p/sclc/) * [SLOCCount](http://www.dwheeler.com/sloccount/) * [Sonar](http://www.sonarsource.org/) * [tokei](https://github.com/Aaronepower/tokei/) * [Unified Code Count](http://csse.usc.edu/ucc_new/wordpress/) Other references: * QSM's [directory](http://www.qsm.com/CodeCounters.html) of code counting tools. * The [Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_lines_of_code) for source code line counts. # Regexp::Common, Digest::MD5, Win32::Autoglob, Algorithm::Diff Although cloc does not need Perl modules outside those found in the standard distribution, cloc does rely on a few external modules. Code from three of these external modules--Regexp::Common, Win32::Autoglob, and Algorithm::Diff--is embedded within cloc. A fourth module, Digest::MD5, is used only if it is available. If cloc finds Regexp::Common or Algorithm::Diff installed locally it will use those installation. If it doesn't, cloc will install the parts of Regexp::Common and/or Algorithm:Diff it needs to temporary directories that are created at the start of a cloc run then removed when the run is complete. The necessary code from Regexp::Common v2.120 and Algorithm::Diff v1.1902 are embedded within the cloc source code (see subroutines `Install_Regexp_Common()` and `Install_Algorithm_Diff()` ). Only three lines are needed from Win32::Autoglob and these are included directly in cloc. Additionally, cloc will use Digest::MD5 to validate uniqueness among equally-sized input files if Digest::MD5 is installed locally. A parallel processing option, `--processes=*N*`, was introduced with cloc version 1.76 to enable faster runs on multi-core machines. However, to use it, one must have the module Parallel::ForkManager installed. This module does not work reliably on Windows so parallel processing will only work on Unix-like operating systems. The Windows binary is built on a computer that has both Regexp::Common and Digest::MD5 installed locally. # Building a Windows Executable #### Create your own executable The most robust option for creating a Windows executable of cloc is to use [ActiveState's Perl Development Kit](http://www.activestate.com/perl-dev-kit). It includes a utility, `perlapp`, which can build stand-alone Windows, Mac, and Linux binaries of Perl source code. [perl2exe](http://www.indigostar.com/perl2exe/) will also do the trick. If you do have `perl2exe`, modify lines 84-87 in the cloc source code for a minor code modification that is necessary to make a cloc Windows executable. Otherwise, to build a Windows executable with `pp` from `PAR::Packer`, first install a Windows-based Perl distribution (for example Strawberry Perl or ActivePerl) following their instructions. Next, open a command prompt, aka a DOS window and install the PAR::Packer module. Finally, invoke the newly installed `pp` command with the cloc source code to create an `.exe` file: ``` C:> cpan -i Digest::MD5 C:> cpan -i Regexp::Common C:> cpan -i Algorithm::Diff C:> cpan -i PAR::Packer C:> cpan -i Win32::LongPath C:> pp -M Win32::LongPath -M Encode::Unicode -M Digest::MD5 -c -x -o cloc-2.08.exe cloc-2.08.pl ``` A variation on the instructions above is if you installed the portable version of Strawberry Perl, you will need to run `portableshell.bat` first to properly set up your environment. The Windows executable in the Releases section, `cloc-2.08.exe`, was built on a 64 bit Windows 11 computer using [Strawberry Perl](http://strawberryperl.com/) 5.32.1 and [PAR::Packer](http://search.cpan.org/~rschupp/PAR-Packer-1.064/lib/pp.pm) to build the `.exe`. #### Is the Windows executable safe to run? Does it have malware? Ideally, no one would need the Windows executable because they have a Perl interpreter installed on their machines and can run the cloc source file. On centrally-managed corporate Windows machines, however, this this may be difficult or impossible. The Windows executable distributed with cloc is provided as a best-effort of a virus and malware-free `.exe`. You are encouraged to run your own virus scanners against the executable and also check sites such https://www.virustotal.com/ . The entries for recent versions are: cloc-2.08.exe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/4529557d957ade0dd45746eae10e9c51ee01061bb617eeeab256672faf6e42c6?nocache=1 cloc-2.06.exe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/bbe48de9102d0f2520d292d65897001c1d068340eb7cd74dd1ee30c1a9091c4a?nocache=1 cloc-2.04.exe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/89cda0038bf4e13c6c13ebc1e60bec4dfad362e69ac8a5b8e2d5ebe3020359e1 cloc-2.02-winget.exe: (includes [PR 850](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/pull/850) to allow [running from a symlink on Windows](https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/issues/849)) https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/be033061e091fea48a5bc9e8964cee0416ddd5b34bd5226a1c9aa4b30bdba66a?nocache=1 cloc-2.02.exe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/369ed76125f7399cd582d169adf39a2e08ae5066031fea0cc8b2836ea50e7ce2?nocache=1 cloc-2.00.exe: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/7a234ef0cb495de1b5776acf88c5554e2bab1fb02725a5fb85756a6db3121c1f #### Why is the Windows executable so large? Windows executables of cloc versions 1.60 and earlier, created with perl2exe as noted above, are about 1.6 MB, while versions 1.62 and 1.54, created with `PAR::Packer`, are 11 MB. Version 1.66, built with a newer version of `PAR::Packer`, is about 5.5 MB. Why are the `PAR::Packer`, executables so much larger than those built with perl2exe? My theory is that perl2exe uses smarter tree pruning logic than `PAR::Packer`, but that's pure speculation. # Basic Use cloc is a command line program that takes file, directory, and/or archive names as inputs. Here's an example of running cloc against the Perl v5.22.0 source distribution: ``` prompt> cloc perl-5.22.0.tar.gz 5605 text files. 5386 unique files. 2176 files ignored. https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.65 T=25.49 s (134.7 files/s, 51980.3 lines/s) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language files blank comment code ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perl 2892 136396 184362 536445 C 130 24676 33684 155648 C/C++ Header 148 9766 16569 147858 Bourne Shell 112 4044 6796 42668 Pascal 8 458 1603 8592 XML 33 142 0 2410 YAML 49 20 15 2078 C++ 10 313 277 2033 make 4 426 488 1986 Prolog 12 438 2 1146 JSON 14 1 0 1037 yacc 1 85 76 998 Windows Message File 1 102 11 489 DOS Batch 14 92 41 389 Windows Resource File 3 10 0 85 D 1 5 7 8 Lisp 2 0 3 4 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 3434 176974 243934 903874 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``` To run cloc on Windows computers, open up a command (aka DOS) window and invoke cloc.exe from the command line there. Alternatively, try ClocViewer, the GUI wrapper around cloc found at https://github.com/Roemer/ClocViewer. See also https://github.com/jmensch1/codeflower for a graphical rendering of cloc results. # GUI Frontends Several GUI frontends to cloc are available: * [cloctui](https://github.com/edward-jazzhands/cloctui) * [ClocViewer](https://github.com/Roemer/ClocViewer) * [codeflower](https://github.com/jmensch1/codeflower) * [cloc-studio](https://github.com/mlgzackfly/cloc-studio) (for macOS) # Options
Full options list (cloc --help) (click the triangle to see all option) ``` prompt> cloc --help Usage: cloc [options] | | Count, or compute differences of, physical lines of source code in the given files (may be archives such as compressed tarballs or zip files, or git commit hashes or branch names) and/or recursively below the given directories. Input Options --extract-with= This option is only needed if cloc is unable to figure out how to extract the contents of the input file(s) by itself. Use to extract binary archive files (e.g.: .tar.gz, .zip, .Z). Use the literal '>FILE<' as a stand-in for the actual file(s) to be extracted. For example, to count lines of code in the input files gcc-4.2.tar.gz perl-5.8.8.tar.gz on Unix use --extract-with='gzip -dc >FILE< | tar xf -' or, if you have GNU tar, --extract-with='tar zxf >FILE<' and on Windows use, for example: --extract-with="\"c:\Program Files\WinZip\WinZip32.exe\" -e -o >FILE< ." (if WinZip is installed there). --list-file= Take the list of file and/or directory names to process from , which has one file/directory name per line. Only exact matches are counted; relative path names will be resolved starting from the directory where cloc is invoked. Set to - to read file names from a STDIN pipe. See also --exclude-list-file. --diff-list-file= Take the pairs of file names to be diff'ed from , whose format matches the output of --diff-alignment. (Run with that option to see a sample.) The language identifier at the end of each line is ignored. This enables --diff mode and bypasses file pair alignment logic. --vcs= Invoke a system call to to obtain a list of files to work on. If is 'git', then will invoke 'git ls-files' to get a file list and 'git submodule status' to get a list of submodules whose contents will be ignored. See also --git which accepts git commit hashes and branch names. If is 'svn' then will invoke 'svn list -R'. The primary benefit is that cloc will then skip files explicitly excluded by the versioning tool in question, ie, those in .gitignore or have the svn:ignore property. Alternatively may be any system command that generates a list of files. Note: cloc must be in a directory which can read the files as they are returned by . cloc will not download files from remote repositories. 'svn list -R' may refer to a remote repository to obtain file names (and therefore may require authentication to the remote repository), but the files themselves must be local. Setting to 'auto' selects between 'git' and 'svn' (or neither) depending on the presence of a .git or .svn subdirectory below the directory where cloc is invoked. --files-from is a synonym for --vcs. --unicode Check binary files to see if they contain Unicode expanded ASCII text. This causes performance to drop noticeably. Processing Options --autoconf Count .in files (as processed by GNU autoconf) of recognized languages. See also --no-autogen. --by-file Report results for every source file encountered. --by-file-by-lang Report results for every source file encountered in addition to reporting by language. --config Read command line switches from instead of the default location of /home/al/.config/cloc/options.txt. The file should contain one switch, along with arguments (if any), per line. Blank lines and lines beginning with '#' are skipped. Options given on the command line take priority over entries read from the file. --count-and-diff First perform direct code counts of source file(s) of and separately, then perform a diff of these. Inputs may be pairs of files, directories, or archives. If --out or --report-file is given, three output files will be created, one for each of the two counts and one for the diff. See also --diff, --diff-alignment, --diff-timeout, --ignore-case, --ignore-whitespace. --diff Compute differences in code and comments between source file(s) of and . The inputs may be any mix of files, directories, archives, or git commit hashes. Use --diff-alignment to generate a list showing which file pairs where compared. When comparing git branches, only files which have changed in either commit are compared. See also --git, --count-and-diff, --diff-alignment, --diff-list-file, --diff-timeout, --ignore-case, --ignore-whitespace. --diff-timeout Ignore files which take more than seconds to process. Default is 10 seconds. Setting to 0 allows unlimited time. (Large files with many repeated lines can cause Algorithm::Diff::sdiff() to take hours.) See also --timeout. --docstring-as-code cloc considers docstrings to be comments, but this is not always correct as docstrings represent regular strings when they appear on the right hand side of an assignment or as function arguments. This switch forces docstrings to be counted as code. --follow-links [Unix only] Follow symbolic links to directories (sym links to files are always followed). See also --stat. --force-lang=[,] Process all files that have a extension with the counter for language . For example, to count all .f files with the Fortran 90 counter (which expects files to end with .f90) instead of the default Fortran 77 counter, use --force-lang="Fortran 90,f" If is omitted, every file will be counted with the counter. This option can be specified multiple times (but that is only useful when is given each time). See also --script-lang, --lang-no-ext. --force-lang-def= Load language processing filters from , then use these filters instead of the built-in filters. Note: languages which map to the same file extension (for example: MATLAB/Mathematica/Objective-C/MUMPS/Mercury; Pascal/PHP; Lisp/OpenCL; Lisp/Julia; Perl/Prolog) will be ignored as these require additional processing that is not expressed in language definition files. Use --read-lang-def to define new language filters without replacing built-in filters (see also --write-lang-def, --write-lang-def-incl-dup). --git Forces the inputs to be interpreted as git targets (commit hashes, branch names, et cetera) if these are not first identified as file or directory names. This option overrides the --vcs=git logic if this is given; in other words, --git gets its list of files to work on directly from git using the hash or branch name rather than from 'git ls-files'. This option can be used with --diff to perform line count diffs between git commits, or between a git commit and a file, directory, or archive. Use -v/--verbose to see the git system commands cloc issues. --git-diff-rel Same as --git --diff, or just --diff if the inputs are recognized as git targets. Only files which have changed in either commit are compared. --git-diff-all Git diff strategy #2: compare all files in the repository between the two commits. --ignore-whitespace Ignore horizontal white space when comparing files with --diff. See also --ignore-case. --ignore-case Ignore changes in case within file contents; consider upper- and lowercase letters equivalent when comparing files with --diff. See also --ignore-whitespace. --ignore-case-ext Ignore case of file name extensions. This will cause problems counting some languages (specifically, .c and .C are associated with C and C++; this switch would count .C files as C rather than C++ on *nix operating systems). File name case insensitivity is always true on Windows. --lang-no-ext= Count files without extensions using the counter. This option overrides internal logic for files without extensions (where such files are checked against known scripting languages by examining the first line for #!). See also --force-lang, --script-lang. --max-file-size= Skip files larger than megabytes when traversing directories. By default, =100. cloc's memory requirement is roughly twenty times larger than the largest file so running with files larger than 100 MB on a computer with less than 2 GB of memory will cause problems. Note: this check does not apply to files explicitly passed as command line arguments. --no-autogen[=list] Ignore files generated by code-production systems such as GNU autoconf. To see a list of these files (then exit), run with --no-autogen list See also --autoconf. --original-dir [Only effective in combination with --strip-comments] Write the stripped files to the same directory as the original files. --read-binary-files Process binary files in addition to text files. This is usually a bad idea and should only be attempted with text files that have embedded binary data. --read-lang-def= Load new language processing filters from and merge them with those already known to cloc. If defines a language cloc already knows about, cloc's definition will take precedence. Use --force-lang-def to over-ride cloc's definitions (see also --write-lang-def, --write-lang-def-incl-dup). --script-lang=, Process all files that invoke as a #! scripting language with the counter for language . For example, files that begin with #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.8 will be counted with the Perl counter by using --script-lang=Perl,perl5.8.8 The language name is case insensitive but the name of the script language executable, , must have the right case. This option can be specified multiple times. See also --force-lang, --lang-no-ext. --sdir= Use as the scratch directory instead of letting File::Temp chose the location. Files written to this location are not removed at the end of the run (as they are with File::Temp). --skip-uniqueness Skip the file uniqueness check. This will give a performance boost at the expense of counting files with identical contents multiple times (if such duplicates exist). --stat Some file systems (AFS, CD-ROM, FAT, HPFS, SMB) do not have directory 'nlink' counts that match the number of its subdirectories. Consequently cloc may undercount or completely skip the contents of such file systems. This switch forces File::Find to stat directories to obtain the correct count. File search speed will decrease. See also --follow-links. --stdin-name= Give a file name to use to determine the language for standard input. (Use - as the input name to receive source code via STDIN.) --strip-comments= For each file processed, write to the current directory a version of the file which has blank and commented lines removed (in-line comments persist). The name of each stripped file is the original file name with . appended to it. It is written to the current directory unless --original-dir is on. --strip-str-comments Replace comment markers embedded in strings with 'xx'. This attempts to work around a limitation in Regexp::Common::Comment where comment markers embedded in strings are seen as actual comment markers and not strings, often resulting in a 'Complex regular subexpression recursion limit' warning and incorrect counts. There are two disadvantages to using this switch: 1/code count performance drops, and 2/code generated with --strip-comments will contain different strings where ever embedded comments are found. --sum-reports Input arguments are report files previously created with the --report-file option in plain format (eg. not JSON, YAML, XML, or SQL). Makes a cumulative set of results containing the sum of data from the individual report files. --timeout Ignore files which take more than seconds to process at any of the language's filter stages. The default maximum number of seconds spent on a filter stage is the number of lines in the file divided by one thousand. Setting to 0 allows unlimited time. See also --diff-timeout. --processes=NUM [Available only on systems with a recent version of the Parallel::ForkManager module. Not available on Windows.] Sets the maximum number of cores that cloc uses. The default value of 0 disables multiprocessing. --unix Override the operating system autodetection logic and run in UNIX mode. See also --windows, --show-os. --use-sloccount If SLOCCount is installed, use its compiled executables c_count, java_count, pascal_count, php_count, and xml_count instead of cloc's counters. SLOCCount's compiled counters are substantially faster than cloc's and may give a performance improvement when counting projects with large files. However, these cloc-specific features will not be available: --diff, --count-and-diff, --strip-comments, --unicode. --windows Override the operating system autodetection logic and run in Microsoft Windows mode. See also --unix, --show-os. Filter Options --include-content= Only count files containing text that matches the given regular expression. --exclude-content= Exclude files containing text that matches the given regular expression. --exclude-dir=[,D2,] Exclude the given comma separated directories D1, D2, D3, et cetera, from being scanned. For example --exclude-dir=.cache,test will skip all files and subdirectories that have /.cache/ or /test/ as their parent directory. Directories named .bzr, .cvs, .hg, .git, .svn, and .snapshot are always excluded. This option only works with individual directory names so including file path separators is not allowed. Use --fullpath and --not-match-d= to supply a regex matching multiple subdirectories. --exclude-ext=[,[...]] Do not count files having the given file name extensions. --exclude-lang=[,L2[...]] Exclude the given comma separated languages L1, L2, L3, et cetera, from being counted. --exclude-list-file= Ignore files and/or directories whose names appear in . should have one file name per line. Only exact matches are ignored; relative path names will be resolved starting from the directory where cloc is invoked. See also --list-file. --fullpath Modifies the behavior of --match-f, --not-match-f, and --not-match-d to include the file's path in the regex, not just the file's basename. (This does not expand each file to include its absolute path, instead it uses as much of the path as is passed in to cloc.) Note: --match-d always looks at the full path and therefore is unaffected by --fullpath. --include-ext=[,ext2[...]] Count only languages having the given comma separated file extensions. Use --show-ext to see the recognized extensions. --include-lang=[,L2[...]] Count only the given comma separated languages L1, L2, L3, et cetera. Use --show-lang to see the list of recognized languages. --match-d= Only count files in directories matching the Perl regex. For example --match-d='/(src|include)/' only counts files in directories containing /src/ or /include/. Unlike --not-match-d, --match-f, and --not-match-f, --match-d always compares the fully qualified path against the regex. --not-match-d= Count all files except those in directories matching the Perl regex. Only the trailing directory name is compared, for example, when counting in /usr/local/lib, only 'lib' is compared to the regex. Add --fullpath to compare parent directories to the regex. Do not include file path separators at the beginning or end of the regex. --match-f= Only count files whose basenames match the Perl regex. For example --match-f='^[Ww]idget' only counts files that start with Widget or widget. Add --fullpath to include parent directories in the regex instead of just the basename. --not-match-f= Count all files except those whose basenames match the Perl regex. Add --fullpath to include parent directories in the regex instead of just the basename. --skip-archive= Ignore files that end with the given Perl regular expression. For example, if given --skip-archive='(zip|tar(.(gz|Z|bz2|xz|7z))?)' the code will skip files that end with .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.Z, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, and .tar.7z. --skip-win-hidden On Windows, ignore hidden files. Debug Options --categorized= Save file sizes in bytes, identified languages and names of categorized files to . --counted= Save names of processed source files to . --diff-alignment= Write to a list of files and file pairs showing which files were added, removed, and/or compared during a run with --diff. This switch forces the --diff mode on. --explain= Print the filters used to remove comments for language and exit. In some cases the filters refer to Perl subroutines rather than regular expressions. An examination of the source code may be needed for further explanation. --help Print this usage information and exit. --found= Save names of every file found to . --ignored= Save names of ignored files and the reason they were ignored to . --print-filter-stages Print processed source code before and after each filter is applied. --show-ext[=] Print information about all known (or just the given) file extensions and exit. --show-lang[=] Print information about all known (or just the given) languages and exit. --show-os Print the value of the operating system mode and exit. See also --unix, --windows. -v[=] Verbose switch (optional numeric value). -verbose[=] Long form of -v. --version Print the version of this program and exit. --write-lang-def= Writes to the language processing filters then exits. Useful as a first step to creating custom language definitions. Note: languages which map to the same file extension will be excluded. (See also --force-lang-def, --read-lang-def). --write-lang-def-incl-dup= Same as --write-lang-def, but includes duplicated extensions. This generates a problematic language definition file because cloc will refuse to use it until duplicates are removed. Output Options --3 Print third-generation language output. (This option can cause report summation to fail if some reports were produced with this option while others were produced without it.) --by-percent X Instead of comment and blank line counts, show these values as percentages based on the value of X in the denominator: X = 'c' -> # lines of code X = 'cm' -> # lines of code + comments X = 'cb' -> # lines of code + blanks X = 'cmb' -> # lines of code + comments + blanks For example, if using method 'c' and your code has twice as many lines of comments as lines of code, the value in the comment column will be 200%. The code column remains a line count. --csv Write the results as comma separated values. --csv-delimiter= Use the character as the delimiter for comma separated files instead of ,. This switch forces --csv to be on. --file-encoding= Write output files using the encoding instead of the default ASCII ( = 'UTF-7'). Examples: 'UTF-16', 'euc-kr', 'iso-8859-16'. Known encodings can be printed with perl -MEncode -e 'print join("\n", Encode->encodings(":all")), "\n"' --hide-rate Do not show line and file processing rates in the output header. This makes output deterministic. --json Write the results as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) formatted output. --md Write the results as Markdown-formatted text. --out= Synonym for --report-file=. --percent Show counts as percentages of sums for each column. Same as '--by-percent t'. --progress-rate= Show progress update after every files are processed (default =100). Set to 0 to suppress progress output (useful when redirecting output to STDOUT). --quiet Suppress all information messages except for the final report. --report-file= Write the results to instead of STDOUT. --sql= Write results as SQL create and insert statements which can be read by a database program such as SQLite. If is -, output is sent to STDOUT. --sql-append Append SQL insert statements to the file specified by --sql and do not generate table creation statements. Only valid with the --sql option. --sql-project= Use as the project identifier for the current run. Only valid with the --sql option. --sql-style=