Question: Sometimes I want to see how many times a certain function is called in a file or a code block. How do you do that? I am using Vim 7.2.

I presume you have to use `!wc` or some such.

Answer: 
For counting the number of times some pattern occurs, use:

```
:%s/pattern//gn

```

The 'n' flag count the number of occurrences without doing any change to the document.

For counting the total number of words, you have several options.

If you want to run as an external command:

```
:!wc -w %

```

If you want to run it inside VIM:

```
:w !wc -w

```
You can use a substitution without a replacement to get the number of occurences. If you want to count all occurences of **word** use

```
:%s/\<word\>//gn

```

`\<` and `\>` match start and end of word. The `n` option prevents the substitution from being done.