Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,
consider this file "master" which contains data as
11:skjs:24:asd2
1:skdfjk:23:sfdf
12:su:25:jkh5
13:gre:22:kljl7
14:sai:34:kjg7

I am trying to enter data into the file "master"

i want to count the number of times 11 is present in the file "master" that to in the first filed itself.
the delimetter is ":"

i am using the command:

grep -c 11 master
answer) 1

grep -c 1 master
answer) 5.
but 5 is not the answer as 1 occurs only once in the 2nd row.

try this:

Code:

grep -c "^11:"

if you can't recognise that "11" does contain "1", then maybe you need to do a bit of maths

u r not understanding what i am saying.

if i want to count the number of 1's in the 1st field of the file
i need to get the count as only 1 not 5.
i am considering the fields as id:name:age:address
i want to get the count of id=1

then what you want is:

Code:

grep -c "^1:" master

Try

Code:

grep -c "\<1\>" in.txt

or

Code:

grep -wc "1" in.txt

if your grep supports w and c flags.

thanks a lot buddies