How to count symbols in a cell in MS Excel

[te7037]

I have a cell reference which contains six codes: B_NEW_2; B_NEW_3; B_NEW_4; B_NEW_5; B_NEW_6; B_NEW_7 in MS Excel.

I wish to calculate the number of semi colons in the cell.  

Please advise.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

a common technique for this is:
=LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,";",""))

[#3]

@mtarler 
Thank you for your response.  But, I wish to count the number of semi-colons in the cell reference ie. there are five semi-colons in the cell reference.

How do we do that?

[#4]

@te7037 

Why didn't you try it? @mtarler's formula does exactly what you asked.

[#5]

Yes, it did work. Thank you.

[#6]

Thank you. It worked.