Count the number of words in a string

Count runs of non-whitespace characters.

JavaScript Version 1.0.0 · MIT · .md

function countWords(text) { return (text.match(/\S+/g) || []).length; }

Input & expected output

"Small code, working integrations."

4

The edge case

"   "

0

Know the limits

• The original split on whitespace and returned 1 for a blank string; this version returns 0.
• Punctuation attached to a word is part of it.

The function above is the implementation used by the lab. The lab validates JSON types and caps size before execution; include equivalent validation when accepting untrusted input in your application.

Keep exploring

• Capitalize a string — Uppercase the first Unicode code point and preserve the remaining text.
• Reverse a string — Reverse Unicode code points without splitting surrogate pairs.
• Check a palindrome — Compare a string with its code-point reversal.