Ha, great

print $count = $_ =~ s/\S+//g;
[download]

was probably what I wanted - just didnt know you could do that with a simple search (although I wondered if one couldnt just use a search in some way)

Thx a lot

Why does a simple

print $count = s/\S+//g;
[download]

not work, though?

This (as suggested below) did not count anything either:

$count = () = s/\S+//g;
[download]

I.