Count occurrences of a word in string | Set 2 (Using Regular Expressions)
Last Updated :
23 Jul, 2025
Given a string str and a word w, the task is to print the number of the occurrence of the given word in the string str using Regular Expression.
Examples:
Input: str = "peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers”, w = "peck"
Output: 1
Explanation: There is only one occurrence of the word "peck" in the given string. Therefore, the output is 1.

Input: str = "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood ?", w = "wood"
Output: 2
Explanation: There are only two occurrences of the word "wood" in the given string.
Therefore, the output is 2.
Input: str = "She sells seashells by the seashore", w = "sea"
Output: 0
Explanation: There is no occurrence of the word "sea" in the given string. Therefore, the output is 0.
Approach: The required regular expression to find the required count of string w in the given string is "\\bw\\b", where \b is a word boundary. Follow the steps to solve the problem
regex = "\\bw\\b"
Below is the implementation of the above approach :
C++
// C++ program for the above approach
#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
using namespace std;
// Function to count total occurrences
// of word "w" in string "str"
void countOccurrences(string str, string w)
{
// Get the regex to be checked
string regexPattern = "\\b" + w + "\\b";
const regex pattern(regexPattern);
// Variable to count total
// occurrences of the given word
int count = 0;
auto it
= sregex_iterator(str.begin(), str.end(), pattern);
for (it; it != sregex_iterator(); it++) {
// Increment count
count++;
}
// Print the occurrences of the word
cout << count << endl;
return;
}
// Driver Code
int main()
{
// Input
string str
= "peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers";
string w = "peck";
countOccurrences(str, w);
return 0;
}
Java
// Java program for the above approach
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
class GFG {
// Function to count total occurrences
// of word "w" in String "str"
static void countOccurrences(String str, String w)
{
// Get the regex to be checked
String regexPattern = "\\b" + w + "\\b";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regexPattern);
// Variable to count total
// occurrences of the given word
int count = 0;
while (str.contains(w)) {
str = str.replace(w, "");
// Increment count
count++;
}
// Print the occurrences of the word
System.out.print(count + "\n");
return;
}
// Driver Code
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// Input
String str = "peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers";
String w = "peck";
countOccurrences(str, w);
}
}
// This code is contributed by gauravrajput1
Python3
# Python program for the above approach
import re
# Function to count total occurrences
# of word "w" in String "str"
def countOccurrences(str,w):
# Get the regex to be checked
regexPattern = "\\b" + w + "\\b"
# Variable to count total
# occurrences of the given word
count=0
for m in re.finditer(regexPattern, str):
# Increment count
count=count+1
# Print the occurrences of the word
print(count)
# Driver Code
# Input
str = "peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers"
w = "peck"
countOccurrences(str,w)
# This code is contributed by Pushpesh Raj.
C#
// C# program for the above approach
using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
public class GFG {
// Function to count total occurrences
// of word "w" in String "str"
static void countOccurrences(String str, String w)
{
// Get the regex to be checked
String regexPattern = "\\b" + w + "\\b";
Regex rx = new Regex(regexPattern,RegexOptions.Compiled | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
// Variable to count total
// occurrences of the given word
int count = 0;
while (str.Contains(w)) {
str = str.Replace(w, "");
// Increment count
count++;
}
// Print the occurrences of the word
Console.Write(count + "\n");
return;
}
// Driver Code
public static void Main(String[] args)
{
// Input
String str = "peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers";
String w = "peck";
countOccurrences(str, w);
}
}
// This code is contributed by gauravrajput1
JavaScript
//// Javascript program for the above approach
function countOccurrences(string, substring) {
var n = 0;
var position = 0;
while (true) {
position = string.indexOf(substring, position);
if (position != -1) {
n++;
position += substring.length;
} else {
break;
}
}
return n;
}
console.log(countOccurrences("peter parker picked a peck of pickled peppers", "peck"));
// This code is contributed By Rahul Chauhan
Time Complexity : O(N)
Auxiliary Space : O(N)
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