Counting the number of dots in a string

bash

Solution

You can do it combining `grep` and `wc` commands:

echo "string.with.dots." | grep -o "\." | wc -l

Explanation:

grep -o   # will return only matching symbols line/by/line
wc -l     # will count number of lines produced by grep

Or you can use only `grep` for that purpose:

echo "string.with.dots." | grep -o "\." | grep -c "\."

Problem

How do I count the number of dots in a string in BASH? For example ``` VAR="s454-da4_sd.fs_84-df.f-sds.a_as_d.a-565sd.dasd" # Variable VAR contains 5 dots ```

Original source

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