[9fans] acme/sam internal/external command combination?

[Axel Belinfante <Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl>]

[cross-posting to sam-fans where this is more appropriate,
 although that has been silent for quite a while]

I can count the number of ``a'' characters in
``dot'' (current selection) in acme using

	Edit x/a/p

which prints all ``a'' from ``dot'' in window +Errors
and the selecting the aaaa string in +Errors and
running >wc on it.

	Edit x/a/ > wc

runs wc for each match of ``a'' which is not what
we want (we want to run wc only once, on all matched ``a'').

Is there a (more) direct way to do this, or to access the
characters printed by the ``p'' command of above ``Edit'',
e.g. something to the effect of

	(Edit x/a/p)| wc

(and if so, what would be the sam equivalent?)


I could imagine a command sequence that first
``destructs'' dot to contain the aaaaa string
and then runs >wc on that, but after that the
original contents should be restored, so that
is not a very good solution.


I think the more general question is: to what
extent is it possible (or useful) to mix internal
sam/acme commands (in particular those for
selecting/matching/looping) with external ones like wc,
or is the solution to not try to use acme/sam
commands for ``preprocessing'' (selecting),
but instead use something external,
like sed or awk, on the whole selection?


Just trying to learn,
Axel.