Is there a way to count the number of occurrences of a word in a file?

Question

Is it possible to count how many times a word or a pattern appears in a file? This is sometimes useful to find out how many times a function has been called, etc.

Some of the same and possibly some different answers too: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4668623/show-count-of-matches-in-vim — NeilG, Nov 03 '23 at 07:50

score 178 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 27 '18 at 18:30

178

Quincy's answer is fine, but there's an exact way to do this which doesn't require editing the buffer:

:%s/pattern//ng

This will print a message like 3 matches on 2 lines, and no changes will be made to your buffer.

The n flag makes the :substitute command print the number of matches instead of performing an actual substitution; the g flag enables reporting of multiple matches per line.

Another thing that might be useful to your use case is to print all lines that match a pattern:

:global/pattern/print

which can be shortened to:

:g/pattern

This is one of the simplest uses of the :global command (which is mind-bogglingly powerful). It will simply print out all of the lines that match pattern, and then (if there is more than one line) you press Enter or type another command to make it go away.

A bit of trivia: This command is the origin of the name grep, as it would commonly be described as g/re/p, where re stands for "regular expression".

edited Jul 27 '18 at 18:30

LEI

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answered Feb 03 '15 at 18:42

tommcdo

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I have to do this maybe 2-3 times a year and never remember the syntax so it's to the search machine, each time. Just wanted to say thank you for this clear answer because it's been there for me more than once and has, for a couple of years now, saved me that gawd awful wikia page! (wikia, not the page's content) – Will Aug 13 '18 at 20:06
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Minor bit: the command g/re/p is actually from ed, not vi. Grep predates vi by a couple of years. – Will Aug 13 '18 at 20:30
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I have a nnoremap <leader>n :%s///gn<CR> mapping. So I press <leader>n to count the occurrences of the previously searched pattern. I use this surprisingly often. – Rolf Feb 06 '19 at 07:51

ruohola · Answer 2 · 2021-01-06T20:17:40.633

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Nowdays (meaning Vim 8.1.1270) you can use:

set shortmess-=S

to enable a count of [x/y] showing in the bottom right corner every time you do a / or ? search.

Relavant section from the Vim help

Note that if the search finds more than 99 results, Vim unfortunately just shows [x/>99]:

For this reason, I personally use google/vim-searchindex, which works for any amount of results:

(By default the plugin is limited to files with "only" less than 100k lines, this can be adjusted with let g:searchindex_line_limit=1000000 though.)

edited Jan 06 '21 at 20:17

answered Mar 24 '20 at 22:57

ruohola

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This does not work for my Vim of version 7.4, am I doing something wrong? – zyy Jan 06 '21 at 19:52
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@zyy It got introduced in 8.1.1270. I suggest that you either update your Vim, or use the plugin I linked. – ruohola Jan 06 '21 at 20:16
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Another edge-case of importance: if you're on x > 99, the result is just [>99/>99], which is completely and utterly useless – Zoe is on strike Apr 21 '21 at 22:07
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Yes @Zoe, that's why the plugin I linked is awesome. – ruohola Apr 21 '21 at 22:08
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Just tested that, but it's incompatible with a search preview plugin I use. Fun :) – Zoe is on strike Apr 21 '21 at 22:16
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See also: Show exact number of matches even for large (>99) numbers – Mateen Ulhaq Oct 24 '23 at 11:29

score 19 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 03 '15 at 18:37

19

:%s/pattern//n The n flag in the end tells :s command to report the number of matches and not actually substitute. Read :h :s_flags for more details.

answered Feb 03 '15 at 18:37

Dhruva Sagar

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Isn't it gn? – yo' Feb 03 '15 at 18:50
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@yo' Yes, though g is just another flag, you'd want to use g too if you feel there may be more than one matches per line, which is often true. For the purpose of the question however the flag n is more important. – Dhruva Sagar Feb 03 '15 at 18:53

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered May 29 '19 at 09:59

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Thanks to this PR https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/4317 , each search command shows search statistics (like current match position, and number of matches) in vim 8.1.1270. Make sure to remove S from the variable shortmess.

answered May 29 '19 at 09:59

Sven

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score 10 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 03 '15 at 18:41

First use / to search for a regex, then

:%s///gn

This is the same as Dhurva's answer, except that it a.) Is easier to use (since you can preview the results of what your regex matches first) and b.) Matches globally with the g flag to count all occurrences.

Emile Vrijdags · Answer 6 · 2019-05-01T09:35:15.400

A mapping I added to my .vimrc based on the answers here:

" count nr of occurrences of word under cursor
nnoremap <leader>c :%s/<c-r><c-w>//gn<cr>

" count nr of occurrences of visual selection
vnoremap <leader>c :<c-u>%s/<c-r>*//gn<cr>

A bit of explanation, hopefully helpful for newer vimmers:

<c-r><c-w> inserts the word under the cursor in the command line, handy in many occasions.
The <c-u> is needed to remove the automatically inserted '<,'> when pressing : in visual mode and going to the command line. The * register contains the (last) visual selection, <c-r>* inserts the contents of the * register in the command line (can also be used in insert mode).

score 3 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 31 '18 at 10:16

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:%s/pattern//g

You will see the number of substitutions in the status bar. That is how many times the pattern appears. Then just press u to undo the substitutions.

edited Oct 31 '18 at 10:16

emallove

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answered Feb 03 '15 at 18:34

Quincy Bowers

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This is such a horrible solution, but I love it. – Sahil Aug 12 '20 at 09:17

Is there a way to count the number of occurrences of a word in a file?

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