# hash.p PERL program to illustrate using a hash to keep counts
#                        of the occurrences of characters in the data.

my %letterCount;

$str = "...ABCABC PANTHERS UNI MAUCKER UNION...";

@a = split(//, $str);

foreach (@a)
{
   print "$_ ";
   if ( exists $letterCount{$_} )
   {
      $letterCount{ $_ }++;
   }
   else
   {
      $letterCount{ $_ } = 1;
   }
}

print "\n\n";

foreach $char (keys %letterCount)
{
   print "  $char = $letterCount{ $char } \n";
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTPUT - hash.out           perl hash.p > hash.out
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . A B C A B C   P A N T H E R S   U N I   M A U C K E R   U N I O N . . . 

    = 4 
  A = 4 
  B = 2 
  C = 3 
  E = 2 
  H = 1 
  I = 2 
  K = 1 
  M = 1 
  . = 6 
  N = 4 
  O = 1 
  P = 1 
  R = 2 
  S = 1 
  T = 1 
  U = 3