Python String count()

The count() method returns the number of occurrences of a substring in the given string.

Example

message = 'python is popular programming language'

# number of occurrence of 'p' print('Number of occurrence of p:', message.count('p'))
# Output: Number of occurrence of p: 4

Syntax of String count

The syntax of count() method is:

string.count(substring, start=..., end=...)

count() Parameters

count() method only requires a single parameter for execution. However, it also has two optional parameters:

  • substring - string whose count is to be found.
  • start (Optional) - starting index within the string where search starts.
  • end (Optional) - ending index within the string where search ends.

Note: Index in Python starts from 0, not 1.


count() Return Value

count() method returns the number of occurrences of the substring in the given string.


Example 1: Count number of occurrences of a given substring

# define string
string = "Python is awesome, isn't it?"
substring = "is"

count = string.count(substring)
# print count print("The count is:", count)

Output

The count is: 2

Example 2: Count number of occurrences of a given substring using start and end

# define string
string = "Python is awesome, isn't it?"
substring = "i"

# count after first 'i' and before the last 'i'
count = string.count(substring, 8, 25)
# print count print("The count is:", count)

Output

The count is: 1

Here, the counting starts after the first i has been encountered, i.e. 7th index position.

And, it ends before the last i, i.e. 25th index position.


Also Read:

Before we wrap up, let’s put your knowledge of Python string count() to the test! Can you solve the following challenge?

Challenge:

Write a function to find the occurrence of a character in the string.

  • For example, with input 'hello world' and 'o', the output should be 2.
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