How to search and count strings?

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10-16-2013

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How to search and count strings?

Hi,

Is there a command to do a sensitive/in-sensitive search for a string on a line and print how many times that string appears?

For example, if I have a line of text below:

dog cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog

Is there a command to search for dog that will print out 3 as a result? I tried grep but grep searches by line.

Feedback much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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10-16-2013

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This will show the sum of hits on all lines in the input file:

Code:

$ cat infile
dog cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
lion tiger dog
$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if($c == "dog"){h++}}} END{print h}' RS= infile
6

This would show it per line:

Code:

$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if($c == "dog"){h++}}} {print h}' infile
3
2
1

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10-16-2013

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How about:-

Code:

tr " " "^J" < infile | grep -c dog

The ^J character is achieved by the key sequence CNTL-V then CNTL-J

The tr splits it into separate lines where it meets a space, then grep -c counts them.

I hope that this helps.

Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK

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10-17-2013

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Quote:

Originally Posted by zaxxon

This will show the sum of hits on all lines in the input file:

Code:

$ cat infile
dog cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
lion tiger dog
$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if($c == "dog"){h++}}} END{print h}' RS= infile
6

This would show it per line:

Code:

$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if($c == "dog"){h++}}} {print h}' infile
3
2
1

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Testing it out gives below:

Code:

$: cat infile
dog cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
lion tiger DOG
$: awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if(tolower($c) == "dog"){h++}}} {print h}' infile
3
2
0

Using nawk instead of awk gives 1 instead of 0. Shouldn't tolower work as well with awk?

Also, testing it with the oracle tnsping command.

Code:

$: tnsping testp1

TNS Ping Utility for Solaris: Version 11.2.0.2.0 - Production on 16-OCT-2013 16:18:06

Copyright (c) 1997, 2010, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Used parameter files:

/db/testp1/dba/sqlnet/sqlnet.ora


Used TNSNAMES adapter to resolve the alias

Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION =(LOAD_BALANCE=off)(FAILOVER=on)(CONNECT_TIMEOUT=5)(TRANSPORT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=3)(RETRY_COUNT=3) (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP) (Host = testp1prim.mnl.ph.com) (Port = 10666))) (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP) (Host = testp1stdby.mnl.ph.com) (Port = 10666))) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVICE_NAME=testp1_app.mnl.ph.com)))
OK (10 msec)

$: tnsping testp1 | grep "Attempting"
Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION =(LOAD_BALANCE=off)(FAILOVER=on)(CONNECT_TIMEOUT=5)(TRANSPORT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=3)(RETRY_COUNT=3) (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP) (Host = testp1prim.mnl.ph.com) (Port = 10666))) (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP) (Host = testp1stdby.mnl.ph.com) (Port = 10666))) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVICE_NAME=testp1_app.mnl.ph.com)))

- Then I tried to grep for Host and expecting to get 2 but got 0 (zero) instead. I tried using nawk, it gives 0 (zero) as well. Any ideas?

Code:

$: tnsping testp1 | grep "Attempting" | awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if($c == "Host"){h++}}} {print h}'
0

- BTW, FYI kinda hoping to be able to parse the tnsping output and be able to reference each value as a shell variable, i.e. for example, echo $load_balance to give off, that's for another post I guess. For the moment, just want to be able to count for a string occurremce.

- Thanks again for your reply.

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10-17-2013

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Right, I forgot you needed it to be case insensitive.

I know, no big help but it worked for me:

Code:

$ cat infile
dog cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
cat rat apple banana dog lion tiger dog
lion tiger DOG
$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if(tolower($c) == "dog"){h++}}} {print h}' infile
3
2
1

For parsing the other output with "Host", you should use something like this, because the word doesn't stand alone separated by awk's field separator:

Code:

$ awk '{for(c=0;c<=NF;c++){if(c==0){h=0}; if( tolower($c) ~ /host/ ){h++}}} {print h}' infile

Last edited by zaxxon; 10-17-2013 at 05:09 AM..

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10-17-2013

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Case insensitive version of my one-liner:-

Code:

tr " " "^J" < infile | grep -ic dog

Robin

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Another alternative (if you have GNU grep):

Code:

grep -oi dog infile | wc -l

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