my $string = '1,3,5,7,9,1,3,4,5,6,2,1,5,6,7,9'; for my $num (1..9) { my $count = () = ",$string," =~ /,$num(?=,)/g; print "$num\t$count\n"; } #### 1 3 2 1 3 2 4 1 5 3 6 2 7 2 8 0 9 2 #### my $string = '1,3,5,7,9,1,3,4,5,6,2,1,5,6,7,9'; our %counts; my $x = "$string,"; 1 while $x =~ /([^,]*),(?{ $counts{$1}++ })/g; for my $num (sort { $a <=> $b } keys %counts) { print "$num\t$counts{$num}\n"; } #### 1 3 2 1 3 2 4 1 5 3 6 2 7 2 9 2