How we can Count the no.of words in a given String

[Jalli Venkat]

Hi Friends,
I want pseudo code and logic for counting the no. of words in a given String.
Eg: Sting str="welcome to the javaranch big mouse saloon";

This is my string.i want 2 count the no. of words in that String.

[Paul Sturrock]

Not an advanced question. Moving...

[Jesper de Jong]

You can use class java.util.StringTokenizer to break a sentence into separate words, and a loop to count the number of words.

Lookup StringTokenizer in the Java API documentation and try using it in your program.

[Karan Rajan]

A quick and easy way is to use StringTokenizer with one whitespace " " as the delimiter. Calling countTokens() will give you the number of words.

e.g.

    
     String str = "welcome to the javaranch big moose saloon";
     StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(str, " ");
     System.out.println(st.countTokens());

[Keith Lynn]

Starting with JDK 1.4, the String class has a method called split() that will split the String into an array of tokens using a regex as delimiter.

[Luciano Mantuaneli]

It has to be pseudo code? Because I know a solution using features too specific of Java API. Can't see how to express it in pseudo code... Let me try:

countWords(str:String): long{
Establish a regex pattern that matches a word
scan the text counting every match of your pattern
return the counting
}

If you want to see the code, let us know!

[Luciano Mantuaneli]

Originally posted by Keith Lynn:
Starting with JDK 1.4, the String class has a method called split() that will split the String into an array of tokens using a regex as delimiter.

This approach can be very tricky: Depending on your regex, you may have distorted values
[ December 04, 2006: Message edited by: Luciano Mantuaneli ]

[Paul Clapham]

If you're just talking about simple English strings like the example (and this is a beginner's homework assignment) then the StringTokenizer and String.split() methods will work just fine. But in real life, especially in languages like Japanese and Thai, extracting words from strings is a rather difficult task.

[Kaydell Leavitt]

What if the String has other white-space in it, such as a non-breaking space, a tab, a carriage-return, a linefeed, or a formfeed?

Are there other kinds of whitespace?

-- Kaydell

[Jesper de Jong]

Originally posted by Luciano Mantuaneli:
If you want to see the code, let us know!

Luciano, please don't post the complete solution - that way Jalli will not learn anything. Have you read the description of the beginner forum? It says:

We're all here to learn, so when responding to others, please focus on helping them discover their own solutions, instead of simply providing answers.

[Luciano Mantuaneli]

Originally posted by Jesper Young:

Luciano, please don't post the complete solution - that way Jalli will not learn anything. Have you read the description of the beginner forum? It says:

Got it!

[Keith Lynn]

Originally posted by Kaydell Leavitt:
What if the String has other white-space in it, such as a non-breaking space, a tab, a carriage-return, a linefeed, or a formfeed?

Are there other kinds of whitespace?

-- Kaydell

\s mathches A whitespace character: [ \t\n\x0B\f\r].

You can find a complete list in the API docs for java.util.regex.Pattern

[Kaydell Leavitt]

I didn't see non-breaking space in the list.

-- Kaydell

[Sanjit Kumar]

word counting can be done in easy way by using JAVA API or you can use your own algorithm like counting the character and if next character is space then increment the counter. you can check for other cases like if there is more than single space or string starts with a space or ends with more than one space.

[Jesse Crockett]

A simple way to count tokens of strings:

import java.util.Scanner;
 
String source = "fun with Scanner";
 
Scanner scan = new Scanner(source);
 
int i = 0;
 
while(scan.hasNext())
  i++;
 
// retrieve value of i

[ December 09, 2006: Message edited by: Jesse Crockett ]
[ December 09, 2006: Message edited by: Jesse Crockett ]

[Jeroen T Wenting]

From the Javadoc of StringTokenizer:

StringTokenizer is a legacy class that is retained for compatibility reasons although its use is discouraged in new code. It is recommended that anyone seeking this functionality use the split method of String or the java.util.regex package instead.

It is effectively deprecated (though not officially marked as such) and should really not be used in new code.