Counting the number of characters inside double quotation marks

Question

I want to find the number of characters inside a double quotation mark.

For example :

Case 1

\"Hello World\" , \"Some

output :

Answer 1

Please help me to figure out what approach shall I use to solve the above-given problem.

Instead of using recursion, you may use this simpler approach that runs in linear time:

void countCharsWithinDoubleQuotes(const std::string& input)
{
    size_t ans = 0;
    bool quoteStarted = false;

    // Iterate through the string and get the required counts
    for (const auto& ch : input)
    {
        // Toggle the quote switch
        if (ch == '"')
            quoteStarted = !quoteStarted;

        // Keep counting the characters after a starting double quote
        else if (quoteStarted)
            ++ans;
    }

    // If a closing quote was not found, it was not balanced
    if (quoteStarted) // quoteDidNotEnd
    {
        std::cout << "Error";
    }

    // Print the number of characters within all the double quotes
    else
    {
        std::cout << ans;
    }
}

Edit:

If you need a better explanation, it is in JohnFilleau's comment below the question.