Thread: Word Counting Program

Hello everyone,

I am new to C programming, but I will do my best to explain my issues. I am currently taking a course and the assignment that we have right now is to create a word counting program. I am suppose to count the characters, lines, and words in any input. The words need to be able to be counted even if there are more than one space inbetween them (i.e. dog cat is 2 words with 4 spaces in between). I am able to make code that counts the words if there is only ONE space, but how can I code it so that it counts with any amount of spaces?

Below is the current loop that I have that is counting the words.

Code:

  if (isspace(ch) != 0)
    {
       wordcount++;
    }

The idea that I have to go about this issue is to somehow make a temporary variable that reads in the spaces, and when there is a space, it increments the space count. When it reaches a character, it starts to count for a new word. Once it reaches another space, the word count increments. The issue is that I am not sure how I can put this idea into code. Can someone help please?

As a side note, I understand that this problem would best be done through arrays and strings, but we have not gone over arrays and strings in our class yet, so I do not want to use them in this assignment.

I implemented that into the code, but it still only works when there is only one space.

Welcome to the forum, PSV!

You need a "state" switch, to indicate if the char you are currently checiking, is inside a word, or is it outside a word.

If it's inside, then count the char, etc. If it's outside the word, no matter how many spaces you run across, you're still outside the word, so count nothing except spaces, etc.

Your "switch" (think of a light switch, on or off), will be an int variable (later, a boolean one, perhaps). It turns on when you get to the first letter or digit, of the input, and turns off when you (boy I feel tired), when you (um um, I need some zzz's), when the program is checking a . . . char. ZZZzzz


What turns your inWord variable from ON to OFF (1 to 0)?

if(inWord...//etc.

What is happening is that it is adding a word whenever there is more than one space. Here is the updated code with your suggestion:

Code:

int prevspace=0; //check if previous character was space
    if (isspace(ch) != 0)
    {           
       if (!prevspace)
       {
         wordcount++;
         prevspace = 0;
       }
       else if(prevspace)
       {
         prevspace = 0;
       }
    }

If you're going to "inch worm" logic, then you need to set previous space to the value of the current space, before you loop again.

hm. for some reason I am not getting the correct output...even with that fix...

Thanks for your help! I appreciate it greatly!