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.

The selected answer (`:g/xxxx/d`)is terrible, dangerous, and inferior to others on this page. Please unselect it. — Bruno Bronosky, Jan 11 '17 at 16:55
i agree and it only tells you 'lines deleted' not 'occurrences deleted' — user1709076, Jul 05 '17 at 19:11

score 216 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 13 '10 at 18:20

216

THE way is

:%s/pattern//gn

answered Oct 13 '10 at 18:20

Gustavo

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This is the most authentic answer with no over-kill trick used. – user1412066 Feb 02 '17 at 13:56
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the best answer! – Paulo Luvisoto Sep 07 '18 at 01:32
What if the pattern i want to search has spaces in betwee? – Kartik Podugu Feb 02 '22 at 09:26

dirkgently · Answer 2 · 2009-04-03T20:59:50.530

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You need the n flag. To count words use:

:%s/\i\+/&/gn

and a particular word:

:%s/the/&/gn

See count-items documentation section.

If you simply type in:

%s/pattern/pattern/g

then the status line will give you the number of matches in vi as well.

edited Apr 03 '09 at 20:59

answered Apr 03 '09 at 20:42

dirkgently

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It looks like this answer is for Vim users and not for Vi :( – kadeshpa Apr 03 '09 at 20:52
Do you only have vi on your system? Which version? – dirkgently Apr 03 '09 at 20:55
Someone tagged your quesiton with vim in it... I removed it. – ojblass Apr 03 '09 at 21:52

score 42 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 03 '09 at 20:41

42

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

answered Apr 03 '09 at 20:41

Mohit Chakraborty

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What a better answer. +5 if possible – ojblass Apr 04 '09 at 00:49
I guess it would work only when no '.*' is used in the pattern – A. K. Aug 17 '12 at 17:36
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No need to repeat the string, just do `%s/string//ng`. – slm Dec 01 '13 at 02:53

tron5 · Answer 4 · 2013-08-28T13:00:46.170

(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)

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 22 '20 at 06:53

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

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 03 '15 at 09:51

4

:g/xxxx/d

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

edited Jun 03 '15 at 09:51

Martin Tournoij

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answered Apr 03 '09 at 20:43

Kevin Beck

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Of course, he can just omit the "d" so he doesn't have to unto the operation. – Rook Apr 03 '09 at 21:02
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Note this only tells you how many lines - not how many occurences. I think dirk's is a better solution. – Apr 03 '09 at 21:06
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My solution below correctly counts multiple occurences within a line and there is nothing to undo. – Mohit Chakraborty Apr 03 '09 at 21:14
Yup, doesn't do occurrences. – jnthnclrk Jan 17 '14 at 17:13
This can be quite slow for very large files. – Patrick Oscity Mar 27 '14 at 09:41
Ugh, this is ugly and dangerous – TZubiri May 14 '19 at 23:34

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 18 '11 at 02:27

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use

:%s/pattern/\0/g

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

answered Feb 18 '11 at 02:27

Sungwon Jeong

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 11 '17 at 17:12

I suggest doing:

Search either with * to do a "bounded search" for what's under the cursor, or do a standard /pattern search.
Use :%s///gn to get the number of occurrences. Or you can use :%s///n to get the number of lines with occurrences.

** I really with I could find a plug-in that would giving messaging of "match N of N₁ on N₂ lines" with every search, but alas.

Note: Don't be confused by the tricky wording of the output. The former command might give you something like 4 matches on 3 lines where the latter might give you 3 matches on 3 lines. While technically accurate, the latter is misleading and should say '3 lines match'. So, as you can see, there really is never any need to use the latter ('n' only) form. You get the same info, more clearly, and more by using the 'gn' form.

Search for string and get count in vi editor

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