Thread: Counting specific word from file

The task that i'm trying to perform is to count the number of times that an specific word is repeated on a .txt file. In this case the word "the".

My first attempt is:

Code:

while(*bufptr++ != '\0'){
    if(strncmp (bufptr,"the",3) == 0){
    i++;
    }}
    printf("The word THE was writen %d times on the file\n",i);

where bufptr is a pointer to memory: char *bufptr;

The problem is that with that code it counts not only "the" but also words such as "theater", "lathe". How can i narrow the counting to only count "the" words?.

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by camel-man

how about if(strncmp (bufptr,"the ",4) == 0)/? Notice the space after the 'e' in "the".

thanks, with your advice i narrowed to not count words like "theater", then i modified to if(strncmp (bufptr," the ",5) == 0) for "lathe" likes.

Only problem you might run into is if the first word of the text file is "The". Then you might be down one count of "the".