I justed faced very similar problem... BUT RegExp_Count couldn't resolved it. How many times string '16,124,3,3,1,0,' contains ',3,'? As we see 2 times, but RegExp_Count returns just 1. Same thing is with ''bbaaaacc' and when looking in it 'aa' - should be 3 times and RegExp_Count returns just 2.
select REGEXP_COUNT('336,14,3,3,11,0,' , ',3,') from dual;
select REGEXP_COUNT('bbaaaacc' , 'aa') from dual;
I lost some time to research solution on web. Couldn't' find... so i wrote my own function that returns TRUE number of occurance. Hope it will be usefull.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION EXPRESSION_COUNT( pEXPRESSION VARCHAR2, pPHRASE VARCHAR2 ) RETURN NUMBER AS
vRET NUMBER := 0;
vPHRASE_LENGTH NUMBER := 0;
vCOUNTER NUMBER := 0;
vEXPRESSION VARCHAR2(4000);
vTEMP VARCHAR2(4000);
BEGIN
vEXPRESSION := pEXPRESSION;
vPHRASE_LENGTH := LENGTH( pPHRASE );
LOOP
vCOUNTER := vCOUNTER + 1;
vTEMP := SUBSTR( vEXPRESSION, 1, vPHRASE_LENGTH);
IF (vTEMP = pPHRASE) THEN
vRET := vRET + 1;
END IF;
vEXPRESSION := SUBSTR( vEXPRESSION, 2, LENGTH( vEXPRESSION ) - 1);
EXIT WHEN ( LENGTH( vEXPRESSION ) = 0 ) OR (vEXPRESSION IS NULL);
END LOOP;
RETURN vRET;
END;