Description
Counts the number of occurrences of a substring in a string.
Syntax
instances = Count (source_string, search_string)
Parameters
The Count function has the following parameters.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| source_string | Identifies the string to search for in search_string. Can be a literal string, expression, constant, or variable. |
| search_string | Identifies the string to search for in source_string. search_string may be a literal string, expression, constant, or variable. If search_string does not appear in source_string, or if search_string is null, a 0 (zero) will be returned. |
The Count() and DCount() functions are usually used to determine the size of a dynamic array. They actually have a more general purpose use, because the search string can be any string used as a delimiter, even multiple character strings.
Note: To count the number of values in a dynamic array, you need to account for the possibility that the array has one value, with no delimiter. The count() function in this case will return 0 because there is no delimiter in the string. To return the correct answer (1), you need to add the boolean expression ( var # ), which returns 1 if the variable contains a value but 0 if it is null. See the example below.
Note: If you use DCount() to count the number of values in a dynamic array, you do not need to add the boolean expression because DCount() returns the proper result (1) if the array has one value with no delimiter.
See Also
Example
* count the number of items in an @fm-delimited list cnt = count(List, @fm) + (List# '') * this is equivalent to: declare function dcount cnt = dcount(List, @fm)
