Search for string and get count in vi editor

Question

I want to search for a string and find the number of occurrences in a file using the vi editor.

Answer 1

Short answer:

:%s/string-to-be-searched//gn

For learning:

There are 3 modes in VI editor as below

• : you are entering from Command to Command-line mode. Now, whatever you write after : is on CLI(Command Line Interface)
• %s specifies all lines. Specifying the range as % means do substitution in the entire file. Syntax for all occurrences substitution is :%s/old-text/new-text/g
• g specifies all occurrences in the line. With the g flag , you can make the whole line to be substituted. If this g flag is not used then only first occurrence in the line only will be substituted.
• n specifies to output number of occurrences
• //double slash represents omission of replacement text. Because we just want to find.

Once got the number of occurrences, you can Press N Key to see occurrences one-by-one.

For finding and counting in particular range of line number 1 to 10:

:1,10s/hello//gn

• Please note, % for whole file is repleaced by , separated line numbers.

For finding and replacing in particular range of line number 1 to 10:

:1,10s/helo/hello/gn