Finding # occurrences of a character in a string in Ruby

ruby string methods
Melanie picture Melanie · Mar 23, 2011 · Viewed 88.5k times · Source

I'm looking for the Ruby method (1.9...) that can help me find the number of occurrences of a character in a string. I'm looking for all occurrences, not just the first one.

For example: "Melanie is a noob" There are two occurrences of the letter 'a'. What would be the Ruby method I could use in order to find this?

I've been using Ruby-doc.org as a reference and the scan method in the String: class caught my eye. The wording is a bit difficult for me to understand, so I don't really grasp the concept of scan.

Edit: I was able to solve this using scan. I shared in a video how I achieved it.

Answer

steenslag picture steenslag · Mar 23, 2011

If you just want the number of a's: 

puts "Melanie is a noob".count('a')  #=> 2

Docs for more details.

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