From: celldee Date: 2007-04-15T08:46:38+09:00 Subject: Counting pairs of newline characters in a string I have a string that is text read in from a file. Within it there are pairs of newline characters and I want to count how many there are. Here is an irb example:- irb(main):001:0> str = "bob irb(main):002:0" irb(main):003:0" and Jane" => "bob\n\nand Jane" irb(main):004:0> str.count("\n\n") => 2 Each newline character is counted separately so I get the number 2 returned instead of the number 1 which is what I require. Is there a way for me to count pairs of newline characters with a simple function? Regards, Chris http://rotsog.wordpress.com