How do I count the number of occurrences of a char in a String?

Question

I have the string

a.b.c.d 

I want to count the occurrences of '.' in an idiomatic way, preferably a one-liner.

(Previously I had expressed this constraint as "without a loop", in case you're wondering why everyone's trying to answer without using a loop).

Answer 1

How about this. It doesn't use regexp underneath so should be faster than some of the other solutions and won't use a loop.

int count = line.length() - line.replace(".", "").length();