xargs will let you cat all the files together before passing them to wc, like you asked: git ls-files | xargs cat | wc -l But skipping the intermediate cat gives you more information and is probably better: git ls-files | xargs wc -l
xargs will let you cat all the files together before passing them to wc, like you asked: git ls-files | xargs cat | wc -l But skipping the intermediate cat gives you more information and is probably better: git ls-files | xargs wc -l