How to count words in a document assuming the text file has multiple spaces

Question

The goal is basically to recreate wc. I need to count words, characters, non white space characters and new lines. I have everything except words I can't figure out how to make it work.

When I searched here everyone was under the assumption that the document did not have multiple white spaces between words. The documents I have to test with are guaranteed to have multiple spaces so this method for counting words does not work.

#include <stdio.h>

int main (int argc, char* argv[]) {
  int Spaces;
  Spaces = 0;
  int NewLine;
  NewLine = 0;
  int Characters;
  Characters = -1;
  char* filename = argv[1];

  if (argc < 2) {
    printf("Usage: \n   wc <filename>\n");
  } else {
    printf("Filename is: %s\n", filename );
    FILE* infile;
    infile = fopen(filename, "r");

    char c;
    do {
      if (c == ' ') {
        Spaces = Spaces + 1;
      }
      if (c == '\n') {
        NewLine = NewLine + 1;
      }
      Characters = Characters + 1;
    } while ((c = fgetc(infile)) != EOF);

    printf("Total number of characters: %d\n", Characters);
    Characters = Characters - NewLine - Spaces;
    printf("Total number of non-whitespace characters: %d\n", Characters);
    printf("Total number of lines: %d\n", NewLine);
  }
  return 0; 
}

This doesn't fix the problem you're asking about, but you should change your `do`/`while` loop to a plain `while` loop and change `c` to an `int`. — Michael Burr, Feb 26 '15 at 01:16
Note: `char c;` --> `int c;` to distinguish `EOF` from all other `char`. — chux - Reinstate Monica, Feb 26 '15 at 02:03
[This](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24489630/why-eofend-of-file-isnt-working-at-the-end-of-a-line-without-a-n-before-it) is a question I asked on another topic, but the code there may prove to be useful. — Dima Maligin, Feb 26 '15 at 16:44

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 26 '15 at 01:25

Normally you use a Boolean variable, typically named something like in_word, which you set to false if the current character is white-space, and true if it's not. You increment the word count when (and only when) it changes from true to false (or vice versa).

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 26 '15 at 16:36

0

Implement your code as having two states: in-a-word and not-in-a-word. Then increment your count when transitioning between states.

I suggest incrementing word count when transitioning from not-in-a-word to in-a-word (as opposed to in-a-word to not-in-a-word), so no special processing will be needed at the end of the file.

edited Feb 26 '15 at 16:36

the paul

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answered Feb 26 '15 at 04:14

user3629249

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How to count words in a document assuming the text file has multiple spaces

2 Answers2