Count the number of occurrences of a character in a string in Javascript

Question

I need to count the number of occurrences of a character in a string.

For example, suppose my string contains:

var mainStr = \"str1,str2,str3,str4\";         


        

Answer 1

The fifth method in Leo Sauers answer fails, if the character is on the beginning of the string. e.g.

var needle ='A',
  haystack = 'AbcAbcAbc';

haystack.split('').map( function(e,i){ if(e === needle) return i;} )
  .filter(Boolean).length;

will give 2 instead of 3, because the filter funtion Boolean gives false for 0.

Other possible filter function:

haystack.split('').map(function (e, i) {
  if (e === needle) return i;
}).filter(function (item) {
  return !isNaN(item);
}).length;