how-many to number?

how-many to number?

[Albert Reiner]

Hi,

I am sure there must be a simple way to get the number of occurrences
of some regular expression in some region as a number.  However, the
only thing I could find was count-matches / how-many, but that only
prints a message in the minibuffer.

A trivial example:

    (how-many "\\b\\w+\\b" (point-min) (point-max))

returns a string like "88 occurrences", but how can I get at the
integer 88 instead?  I would then want to do some simple arithmetic on
it.

Thanks in advance,

Albert.

Re: how-many to number?

[rgb]

>     (how-many "\\b\\w+\\b" (point-min) (point-max))
>
> returns a string like "88 occurrences", but how can I get at the
> integer 88 instead?  I would then want to do some simple arithmetic on
> it.

C-h f how-many <ret>

Print and return number of matches for regexp following point.
When called from Lisp and interactive is omitted or nil, *just return
the number, do not print it*; if interactive is t, the function behaves
in all respects has if it had been called interactively.

Re: how-many to number?

[Albert Reiner]

["rgb" <rbielaws@i1.net>, 28 Sep 2005 06:35:26 -0700]:
> C-h f how-many <ret>
> 
> Print and return number of matches for regexp following point.
> When called from Lisp and interactive is omitted or nil, *just return
> the number, do not print it*; if interactive is t, the function behaves
> in all respects has if it had been called interactively.

Thanks; I don't get this on GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu, X
toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2005-02-04 on bugs.build.redhat.com:

,----[ C-h f how-many RET ]
| how-many is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `replace'.
| (how-many REGEXP &optional RSTART REND)
| 
| Print number of matches for REGEXP following point.
| 
| If REGEXP contains upper case characters (excluding those preceded by `\'),
| the matching is case-sensitive.
| 
| Second and third arg RSTART and REND specify the region to operate on.
| 
| Interactively, in Transient Mark mode when the mark is active, operate
| on the contents of the region.  Otherwise, operate from point to the
| end of the buffer.
`----

So I guess that changed recently.  My current work-around:

    (read (how-many "\\b\\w+\\b" (point-min) (point-max)))

, which is ugly but seems to work.

Thanks for your help,

Albert.

Re: how-many to number?

[Neon Absentius]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 04:00:38PM +0200, Albert Reiner wrote:

> So I guess that changed recently.  

I think it is changed only on CVS.  Emacs 21.4.1 has the old version.

Re: how-many to number?

[Albert Reiner]

[Neon Absentius <absent@sdf.lonestar.org>, Thu, 29 Sep 2005 03:15:59 +0000]:
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 04:00:38PM +0200, Albert Reiner wrote:
> 
> > So I guess that changed recently.  
> 
> I think it is changed only on CVS.  Emacs 21.4.1 has the old version.

Thanks for the confirmation / clarification,

Albert.