Unix / Linux: grep Word Count Command

How do I count words using grep command under Linux / Unix like operating systems?

You can pass the -c option to grep command to suppress normal output and display a count of matching lines for each input file. The syntax is follows:

 
grep -c "word" file
grep -c "string" file

In this example, search for a word called 'var' and display a count of matching lines:

 
grep -c 'var' /etc/passwd

Sample outputs:

You can pass the -v option to count non-matching lines:

 
grep -v 'var' /etc/passwd

However, this will not count words. To count exact matched words, enter:

 
grep -o -w 'word' /path/to/file/ | wc -w

The grep -o command will only display matched words and the wc -c command will display the word counts:

 
grep -o -w 'foo' bar.txt | wc -w

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Unix / Linux: grep Word Count Command

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