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

My solution:

function countOcurrences(str, value){
   var regExp = new RegExp(value, "gi");
   return str.match(regExp) ? str.match(regExp).length : 0;  
}

Answer 2

Performance of Split vs RegExp

var i = 0;

var split_start = new Date().getTime();
while (i < 30000) {
  "1234,453,123,324".split(",").length -1;
  i++;
}
var split_end = new Date().getTime();
var split_time = split_end - split_start;


i= 0;
var reg_start = new Date().getTime();
while (i < 30000) {
  ("1234,453,123,324".match(/,/g) || []).length;
  i++;
}
var reg_end = new Date().getTime();
var reg_time = reg_end - reg_start;

alert ('Split Execution time: ' + split_time + "\n" + 'RegExp Execution time: ' + reg_time + "\n");

Answer 3

Here's one just as fast as the split() and the replace methods, which are a tiny bit faster than the regex method (in Chrome and Firefox both).

let num = 0;
let str = "str1,str2,str3,str4";
//Note: Pre-calculating `.length` is an optimization;
//otherwise, it recalculates it every loop iteration.
let len = str.length;
//Note: Don't use a `for (... of ...)` loop, it's slow!
for (let charIndex = 0; charIndex < len; ++charIndex) {
  if (str[charIndex] === ',') {
    ++num;
  }
}

Answer 4

Easiest way i found out...

Example-

str = 'mississippi';

function find_occurences(str, char_to_count){
    return str.split(char_to_count).length - 1;
}

find_occurences(str, 'i') //outputs 4

Answer 5

And there is:

function character_count(string, char, ptr = 0, count = 0) {
    while (ptr = string.indexOf(char, ptr) + 1) {count ++}
    return count
}

Works with integers too!

Answer 6

You can also rest your string and work with it like an array of elements using

• Array.prototype.filter()

const mainStr = 'str1,str2,str3,str4';
const commas = [...mainStr].filter(l => l === ',').length;

console.log(commas);

Or

• Array.prototype.reduce()

const mainStr = 'str1,str2,str3,str4';
const commas = [...mainStr].reduce((a, c) => c === ',' ? ++a : a, 0);

console.log(commas);