how to count substring in a string

Hi bhatia_amrita,

echo $string | awk -F "substring" ' { print NF-1 } '

Sunnycoder

Do you want the number of strings in the string like this?
"hi world how you doing" = 5
This you cont like this
echo $string | awk ' { print NF} '

The thing sonnycoder told you about will count the nr of times a certain string is find in a string like this
find "you" in
"Hi you bastard you" = 2
echo $string | awk -F "you" ' { print NF-1 } '
The -F changes the field separator to the word you and the NF is the number of fields.

Here is an awk howto is a good program for handling strings and files separated by anything.
http://www.cs.uu.nl/docs/vakken/st/nawk/nawk_toc.html

and here is a good bash scripting manual
http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/so1/ftpdei/sop1/Docs/Linux/abs-guide/

and here a sed manual a stream editor:
http://gnu.intissite.com/software/sed/manual/html_chapter/sed_toc.html

/Rob

me actually looking for counting number of occurences of a  given substring in a string

thnx a ton :)