Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Counting the number of times a character appears

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Counting the number of times a character appears
# 1  
Old 06-04-2009
Counting the number of times a character appears
I am looking for a bash command that counts the number of times a character appears in a file. For example "I am a newbie, trying to learn shell script". Then the command counts the number of e and gives them as 4. Also I want one that counts the number of times a character in a string is replaced. For example I replace every e with c and it gives me the number of time it is replace. I tried grep but it only counts number of lines. Any help is appreciated.
# 2  
Old 06-04-2009
There are actually lots of previous threads for the counting part.

As for counting the replacements, count before, replace, count after the difference is the number you want.

You should see other relevant threads at the top or bottom of this page ( I can't remember which ) and at least one will have something you can use.
# 3  
Old 06-04-2009
look into 'man nawk' and search for 'gsub' - it will do both (which are actually the same come to think of it).
 
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Counting number of times content in columns occurs in other files

I need to figure out how many times a location (columns 1 and 2) is present within a group of files. I figured using a combination of 'while read' and 'grep' I could count the number of instances but its not working for me. cat file.txt | while read line do grep $line *08-new.txt | wc -l... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: ncwxpanther
6 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Counting leading spaces to a character

data.txt { "auth_type": "role", "default_attributes": { "sudoers": { i need to know how manyspaces are before an actual character in each line of a file. for example. in the above data.txt, There are 0 spaces leading up to { There are 4 spaces leading up to the... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: SkySmart
7 Replies

3. Homework & Coursework Questions

Accepting a phrase and counting the number of times that it is repeated in a specific website

1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data: Develop a shell script that accepts a phrase and counts the number of times that it is repeated in a specific website. Note: Im not sure if it's the whole website, or just a specific page but im guessing its thewhole website. ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: Zakerii
2 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to print a particular character n number of times in a line??

hi, Is it possible to print a particular character n number of times in a line? for example. i am print the following line using echo command.. echo "files successfully moved" i want to count the number of characters that are been displayed. i am doin it using echo "files... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: Little
8 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Counting script how many times it run?

i should use this script runs how many times before ? how can i do_? (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: utoptas
3 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Counting occurence of a particular character on each line

Hi, I have the following data in a flat file: abcd_efgh_ijkl_20080522.dat|20080602222508|1357 abcd_efgh_ijkl_20080522.dat|20080602222508|1357 abcd_efgh_ijkl_20080522.dat|20080602222508|1357 I need to check the no. of occurence of "|" (pipe) on each line and the output should look like below:... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: hey_mak
4 Replies

7. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Counting position of a character

Hi All, I have a file of the format : idsfskjvfdznvdfjvh ierwjfkncmvlkmc xszkmdvnosndzjndf weuhrndzierfncv rndsjnsllshens iernzkfndslkdhf zkinewfinfvlkmvd I wish to count the occurrences of character 'z' in the file. I also need to find out the position of 'z' in various lines. and... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: rochitsharma
3 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Counting Number of times a File is accessed

Hi, I need to count the number of times a script is accessed from within the script. Is it possible ? Example: I have a script called lo.sh and i execute the script for the first time, then the counter variable declared inside the lo.sh should increment by 1. For every execution the... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: pathanjalireddy
1 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

AWK print a character many times

How can I print a '-' on the same line within awk, say 50 times, without actually typing '-' 50 times? Cheers (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: dbrundrett
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question