Scenario : ========== There is an enrolment data file containing details of a centre and the subject codes with other details which can be given as : 2002/sem2/abc1234/abc1 : 2345/E/XX 2002/sem1/abc1235/xyz1 : 4556/D/RR 2002/summer/abc1235/dec1 : 2350/E/RR 2002/sem2/abc1234/abc1 : 2345/E/RR ------------- N.B. : Chennai = XX Bombay = RR The data file is entered using pico editor manually. We assume the data file exists. I want to know how could a user using the either (bash/shell) script can find the occurance of words like abc1235 occuring in a file eg. words like XX, RR and to count them and to print them. The user is to enter the command on the command line prompt like ./occur.sh enrol.dat 2002 sem2 abc1234 abc1235 and the output must be : Code Chennai Bombay Total ==== ======= ====== ===== abc1234 1 1 2 abc1235 0 2 2 I did using grep command to cut the value, but I was able to cut only one value but how to count the occurance of multiple words in a file. Any help from the Linux gurus/Linux Community will be appreciated. Thanks, Regards, Kaleem.

See if grep 'abc1234' infile | grep -c XX will give you the numbers you are looking for.