Java Beginner - Counting number of words in sentence

Question

I am suppose to use methods in order to count number of words in the a sentence. I wrote this code and I am not quite sure why it doesn\'t work. No matter what I write, I on

Answer 1

Tested method - handles all inputs

public static void countwords() {
    String s = "  t    ";
    int count = 0;
    int length = s.length()-1;
    char prev = ' ';

    for(int i=length; i>=0; i--) {
        char c = s.charAt(i);
        if(c != prev && prev == ' ') {
            count++;
        }
        prev = c;
    }
    System.out.println(count);
}

Answer 2

Should you not have int count = 0; instead of int count = 1;, in case of blank sentences. If you're getting Java errors please could you add them to your question.

Answer 3

Actually, if you enter a sentence like:

"Hello World"

your code String sentence = in.next(); will only get the first word in the sentence i.e., Hello. So, you need to use in.nextLine() in place of in.next() to get the whole sentence i.e., Hello World.

Answer 4

Use this method to calculate the number of words in a String:-

    private int calculateWords(String s){

    int count=0;

    if(s.charAt(0)!=' ' || s.charAt(0)!=','){

        count++;

    }

    for(int i=1;i<s.length();i++){
            if((s.trim().charAt(i)==' ' && s.charAt(i+1)!=' ')  || (s.trim().charAt(i)==',' && s.charAt(i+1)!=',')){

                count++;
            }

    }

    return count;
}

Answer 5

I'd suggest to use BreakIterator. This is the best way to cover not standard languages like Japanese where there aren't spaces that separates words.

Example of word counting here.

Answer 6

Here is one more method just using split, trim, equals methods to improve code and performance.

This code will work with space as well.

public int countWords(String string){
    String strArr [] = string.split("\\s");
    int count = 0;
    for (String str: strArr) {
        if(!str.trim().equals("")){
            count++;
        }
    }
    return count;
}