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Grep command to count characters

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# 1  
Old 01-19-2010
Grep command to count characters
I have a file that I need to count the number of "Y"s in the file, but just the "Y"s that fall between certain columns. Like:

file1:
Code:
1234567890123456789012345
BBBBBBYBBBBYBBYBBYBBYBBB

I want to count the 'Y's between 17 and 21 = 2 "Y"s

Thanks
Last edited by Franklin52; 01-19-2010 at 08:41 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags!
# 2  
Old 01-19-2010
Try this:

Code:
awk '{
  s=substr($0,17,5)
  n+=gsub("Y","",s)
}
END{print n}
' file

# 3  
Old 01-19-2010
Code:
$ cat input-file
1234567890123456789012345
BBBBBBYBBBBYBBYBBYBBYBBB
$ sed 's/^.\{17\}\(.\)\(.\)\(.\)\(.\).*$/\1\n\2\n\3\n\4/' input-file  | grep -c 'Y'
2

# 4  
Old 01-19-2010
thegeek,

grep -c gives the count of the lines that contain the pattern, not the numbers of the pattern in a line.

Regards
# 5  
Old 01-19-2010
(thegeek is outputting characters 17-21 with a newline after each character then counting the number of lines containing a letter "Y" ). Ingenious.
# 6  
Old 01-19-2010
Tools Here is another approach
Code:
>cat they.txt
1234567890123456789012345
BBBBBBYBBBBYBBYBBYBBYBBBB
BBBBBBYBBBBYBBYBBBBBYBBBB
BBBBBBYBBBBYBBYBYBBBBBBBB

>cut -c17-21 they.txt | sed "s/Y/Y\n/" | grep "Y" | wc -l
4
>cut -c17-21 they.txt | sed "s/Y/Y\n/" | grep "Y" -c
4

Last edited by joeyg; 01-19-2010 at 11:16 AM.. Reason: added a 2nd command
# 7  
Old 01-19-2010
Just for the fun of it, another similar approach but using "fold" to break each character in each line into a separate line.

Code:
cut -c17-21 filename|fold -w 1| grep "Y"|wc -l
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