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

use

:%s/pattern/\0/g

when pattern string is too long and you don't like to type it all again.

Answer 2

:g/xxxx/d

This will delete all the lines with pattern, and report how many deleted. Undo to get them back after.

Answer 3

:%s/string/string/g will give the answer.

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

THE way is

:%s/pattern//gn

Answer 6

(similar as Gustavo said, but additionally: )

For any previously search, you can do simply:

:%s///gn

A pattern is not needed, because it is already in the search-register (@/).

"%" - do s/ in the whole file
"g" - search global (with multiple hits in one line)
"n" - prevents any replacement of s/ -- nothing is deleted! nothing must be undone!
(see: :help s_flag for more informations)

(This way, it works perfectly with "Search for visually selected text", as described in vim-wikia tip171)