How to count rows by field with awk

Status summaries from delimited exports can be wrong when the same word appears in several columns. Counting rows by an awk field keeps the grouping tied to one column, so a value such as paid is counted only when it appears in the status field.

awk stores each distinct field value as an associative-array key. With -F,, it reads comma-separated fields, increments count[$3] for the third field, and prints the totals from the END block after all rows have been read.

The sample uses a header row and simple comma-separated text. awk does not sort associative-array keys, so the output order can vary between implementations; the value-count pairs are the result to check. Use a CSV-aware parser instead when fields can contain quoted commas or embedded newlines.

1. Create a small comma-separated sample file.

   orders.csv

   order_id,region,status
   1001,us-east,paid
   1002,eu-west,pending
   1003,us-east,paid
   1004,ap-south,failed
   1005,eu-west,paid
   1006,us-east,pending

2. Count rows by the third field.

   $ awk -F, 'NR > 1 { count[$3]++ } END { for (value in count) print value, count[value] }' orders.csv
   paid 3
   failed 1
   pending 2

   NR > 1 skips the header row. Remove that condition when the input has no header.

3. Count a different field by changing the field number.

   $ awk -F, 'NR > 1 { count[$2]++ } END { for (value in count) print value, count[value] }' orders.csv
   eu-west 2
   us-east 3
   ap-south 1

   $2 counts the region field, while $3 counts the status field.

4. Remove the sample file.

   $ rm orders.csv