CODEWITHSUNDEEP
java
Iam APseudo-Intellectual
Iam APseudo-Intellectual

Reputation: 239

how to count the exact number of words in a string that has empty spaces between words?

Write a method called wordCount that accepts a String as its parameter and returns the number of words in the String. A word is a sequence of one or more nonspace characters (any character other than ' '). For example, the call wordCount("hello") should return 1, the call wordCount("how are you?") should return 3, the call wordCount(" this string has wide spaces ") should return 5, and the call wordCount(" ") should return 0.

I made a function:

public static int wordCount(String s){

  int counter = 0;

  for(int i=0; i<=s.length()-1; i++) {

    if(Character.isLetter(s.charAt(i))){

      counter++;

      for(i<=s.length()-1; i++){

        if(s.charAt(i)==' '){

          counter++;
        }
      }                
    }
  }

  return counter;
}

But i know this has 1 limitation that it will also count the number of spaces after all the words in the string have finished nad it will also count 2 blank spaces as possibly being 2 words :( Is there a predefined function for word count? or can this code be corrected?

Upvotes: 12

Views: 56369

Answers (9)

RichardK
RichardK

Reputation: 3471

My few solutions:

public static int wordcount1(String word) {

        if (word == null || word.trim().length() == 0) {
            return 0;
        }

        int counter = 1;

        for (char c : word.trim().toCharArray()) {
            if (c == ' ') {
                counter++;
            }
        }
        return counter;
    }

//

public static int wordcount2(String word) {
        if (word != null || word.length() > 0) {
            return word.trim().length()
                    - word.trim().replaceAll("[ ]", "").length() + 1;
        } else {
            return 0;
        }
    }

// Recursive

public static int wordcount3(String word) {
        if (word == null || word.length() == 0) {
            return 0;
        }
        if (word.charAt(0) == ' ') {
            return 1 + wordcount3(word.substring(1));
        }
        return wordcount3(word.substring(1));
    }

//

public static int wordcount4(String word) {
        if (word == null || word.length() == 0) {
            return 0;
        }

        String check = word.trim();
        int counter = 1;
        for (int i = 0; i < check.length(); i++) {
            if (i > 0 && Character.isSpaceChar(check.charAt(i))
                    && !Character.isSpaceChar(check.charAt(i - 1))) {
                counter++;
            }
        }
        return counter;
    }

Upvotes: 0

Tmac_shamgod
Tmac_shamgod

Reputation: 21

public static int wordCount(String s){
    int counter=0;
    for(int i=0;i<=s.length()-1;i++){
        if(Character.isLetter(s.charAt(i))){
            counter++;
            for(;i<=s.length()-1;i++){
                if(s.charAt(i)==' '){
                    i++;
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return counter;
}

This is what you need if don't use the predefined function. I have tested it by myself. Please let me know if there is any bugs!

Upvotes: 1

Peter Lawrey
Peter Lawrey

Reputation: 533492

If you want to ignore leading, trailing and duplicate spaces you can use

String trimmed = text.trim();
int words = trimmed.isEmpty() ? 0 : trimmed.split("\\s+").length;

Upvotes: 33

Balaswamy Vaddeman
Balaswamy Vaddeman

Reputation: 8530

String str="I am a good boy";
String[] words=str.split("\\s+");
System.out.println(words.length);

Upvotes: 2

rauschen
rauschen

Reputation: 3996

public static int wordCount(String s){
    if (s == null)
       return 0;
    return s.trim().split("\\s+").length;
}

Have fun with the function.

Upvotes: 6

Shashank Kadne
Shashank Kadne

Reputation: 8101

Simply use s.split(" ").length and for wide spaces...use s.trim().replaceAll("\\s+"," ").split(" ").length

Upvotes: 1

noisy cat
noisy cat

Reputation: 3065

Added some lines to your code: 

public static int wordCount(String s){
    int counter=0;
    for(int i=0;i<=s.length()-1;i++){
            if(Character.isLetter(s.charAt(i))){
                    counter++;
                    for(;i<=s.length()-1;i++){
                            if(s.charAt(i)==' '){
                                    counter++;
                                    i++;
                                    while (s.charAt(i)==' ')
                                        i++;
                                    }
                            }

                    }


            }
            return counter;
   }

Upvotes: 0

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 784998

It should be easy with:

String[] arr = "how are you sir".split("\\s");
System.out.printf("Count [%d]%n", arr.length);

Upvotes: 0

Savino Sguera
Savino Sguera

Reputation: 3572

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#split(java.lang.String)

Splits this string around matches of the given regular expression.

Upvotes: 0

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