CFLib.org – Common Function Library Project

Description:
Count the occurences of a value or list of values in a string. Pass the string (lists will be treated as strings) to parse and anything from a single character to a list of various items to count and the count or list of counts will be returned. Spaces in the item or list of items are not stripped.

Return Values:
Returns a string.

Example:

<cfset testString = "<b>This is a test string</b> with <i>text</i>, tags, || (pipes), and a      (tab) in it.">

<cfoutput>
#getOccurrenceCount(testString,"a")#<br>
#getOccurrenceCount(testString,"., ,<b>,<,text,#Chr(9)#")#<br>
#getOccurrenceCount(testString,",|text|#Chr(9)#", "|")#<br>
</cfoutput>

Parameters:

Full UDF Source:

/**
 * Count the occureneces of a value or list of values in a given string.
 * 
 * @param content      String to parse. (Required)
 * @param countThis      Character, or list of characters to count. (Required)
 * @param countThisDelimiter      Delimiter. Defaults to a comma. (Optional)
 * @return Returns a string. 
 * @author Cody Ridgway (cridgway@dcccd.edu) 
 * @version 1, October 13, 2006 
 */
function getOccurrenceCount(content, countThis) {
    var countThisDelimiter = ','; 
    var countThisLen = 1; 
    var countThisItem = ';
    var returnCount = ';
    var i = 1;
    
    if(arrayLen(Arguments) GT 2) countThisDelimiter = Left(arguments[3],1);
    countThisLen = ListLen(countThis, countThisDelimiter);
    
    if(countThisLen GT 1) {
        for(i=1; i LTE countThisLen; i=i+1){
            countThisItem = listGetAt(countThis, i, countThisDelimiter);
            returnCount = ListAppend(returnCount, val(len(content) - len(replace(content,countThisItem,"","all")))/Len(countThisItem));
        }
    }
    else{
        returnCount = val(len(content) - len(replace(content,countThis,"","all")))/Len(countThis);
    }
    return returnCount;
}