How to count all spaces in a file in Unix

bash, gnu-coreutils

Solution

Use `grep` and `wc` in a way like this to count the occurrences of spaces:

grep -o ' ' | wc -l 

`grep -o` will print every match in a separate line. The number of those lines can afterwards counted easily using `wc -l`

Problem

I want to count all the spaces from my file in Unix and I have tried the following command: ``` grep " " file1 | wc ``` It is giving me the following output: ``` 3 6 34 ``` There are three spaces in my file so is it accurate command and further more how can I filter this to get exactly the spaces so only '3' should come as output and also how can I remove it

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