How to count item occurences in BASH array?

Question

I have an array ${myarr[@]} with strings. ${myarr[@]} basically consists of lines and each line constists of words.

world hello moo         


        

Answer 1

Try this:

for word in ${myarr[*]}; do
  echo $word
done | grep -c "hello"

Answer 2

Alternative (without loop):

grep -o hello <<< ${myarr[*]} | wc -l

Answer 3

No need for an external program:

count=0
for word in ${myarr[*]}; do
    if [[ $word =~ hello ]]; then
        (( count++ ))
    fi
done 

echo $count