get just the integer from wc in bash

Question

Most simple answer ever:

wc < filename 

Just:

wc -l < file_name

will do the job. But this output includes prefixed whitespace as wc right-aligns the number.

You can use the cut command to get just the first word of wc's output (which is the line or word count):

lines=`wc -l $f | cut -f1 -d' '`
words=`wc -w $f | cut -f1 -d' '`

wc $file | awk {'print "$4" "$2" "$1"'}

Adjust as necessary for your layout.

It's also nicer to use positive logic ("is a file") over negative ("not a directory")

[ -f $file ] && wc $file | awk {'print "$4" "$2" "$1"'}