cloc

Prerequisites

Before running cloc, check if it is installed:

which cloc

If not found, install it:

• macOS: brew install cloc
• npm: npm install -g cloc
• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install cloc
• Red Hat/Fedora: sudo yum install cloc

About cloc

cloc counts blank lines, comment lines, and physical lines of source code in 200+ programming languages. It can analyze files, directories, archives (tar, zip, .whl, .ipynb), and git commits/branches.

Common Usage

Count a directory (default: current project):

cloc .

Count using git file list (respects .gitignore):

cloc --vcs=git

Count a specific path:

cloc $ARGUMENTS

Count by file (detailed breakdown):

cloc --by-file --vcs=git

Diff between two git refs:

cloc --git --diff <ref1> <ref2>

Exclude directories:

cloc --exclude-dir=node_modules,vendor,.git .

Output Formats

Use these flags for machine-readable output:

• --json — JSON
• --yaml — YAML
• --csv — CSV
• --md — Markdown table
• --xml — XML

Useful Flags

Flag	Purpose
--by-file	Per-file breakdown instead of per-language
--vcs=git	Use git to get file list (respects .gitignore)
--git	Treat arguments as git targets (commits, branches)
--diff <a> <b>	Show added/removed/modified lines between two sources
--exclude-dir=<d1,d2>	Skip directories
--exclude-lang=<l1,l2>	Skip languages
--include-lang=<l1,l2>	Only count these languages
--force-lang=<lang>,<ext>	Map file extension to a language
--processes=N	Parallel processing (N cores)
--quiet	Suppress progress output

Guidelines

• Prefer --vcs=git over bare . to avoid counting generated/vendored files
• Use --json when the user needs to process the output programmatically
• When comparing versions, use --git --diff <ref1> <ref2>
• For large repos, consider --processes=N to speed things up