Counting the number of dots in a string

Question

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

Answer 1

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 "\."

Answer 2

VAR="s454-da4_sd.fs_84-df.f-sds.a_as_d.a-565sd.dasd"
echo $VAR | tr -d -c '.' | wc -c

tr -d deletes given characters from the input. -c takes the inverse of given characters. together, this expression deletes non '.' characters and counts the resulting length using wc.