Quick C question

After googling around I didn't really find an answer for my question.

Programming in C, I have a file with a random amount of positive numbers in it.

Example:
5 3 85 23 9 54

How exactly can I scan the file for the amount of numbers in it. So scanning that file would return 6.

I tried it, but your full of fail:


$ catfile | wc -w
-bash: catfile: command not found
       0
$ catnumbers.txt | wc -w
-bash: catnumbers.txt: command not found
       0
$