while ($string =~ /<pattern>/g) { $count++ }

if we are looking for occurrences of single character in a
string then we can use TR command
syntax: tr///
example: 
$string="The lion group will meet me after lunch";
and we are looking for the occurrences of character 'l' in
the given string. then we can write tr like
$count = ($string=~tr/l//);
print "l is coming $count time(s)";

but for multiple characters look up we have to use:

$string = "-9 55 48 -2 23 -76 4 14 -44";
while ($string =~ /-\d+/g) { $count++ }
print "There are $count negative numbers in the string";


Donated by :- Kuldip singh behal

($count)=$string =~ s/<pattern>/<pattern>/g;