How to count instances of character in SQL Column

Question

I have an sql column that is a string of 100 \'Y\' or \'N\' characters. For example:

YYNYNYYNNNYYNY...

What is the easiest way

Answer 1

This snippet works in the specific situation where you have a boolean: it answers "how many non-Ns are there?".

SELECT LEN(REPLACE(col, 'N', ''))

If, in a different situation, you were actually trying to count the occurrences of a certain character (for example 'Y') in any given string, use this:

SELECT LEN(col) - LEN(REPLACE(col, 'Y', ''))