About this series

This is series of daily JavaScript coding challenges... for both beginners and advanced users.

Each day I’m gone present you a very simple coding challenge, together with the solution. The solution is intentionally written in a didactic way using classic JavaScript syntax in order to be accessible to coders of all levels.

Solutions are designed with increase level of complexity.

Today’s coding challenge

Create a function that will return the number of words in a text

(scroll down for solution)

Code newbies

If you are a code newbie, try to work on the solution on your own. After you finish it, or if you need help, please consult the provided solution.

Advanced developers

Please provide alternative solutions in the comments below.

You can solve it using functional concepts or solve it using a different algorithm... or just solve it using the latest ES innovations.

By providing a new solution you can show code newbies different ways to solve the same problem.

Solution

// Solution for challenge31a

function countWords(text)
{
    var wasSeparator = true;
    var words = 0;

    for(var c of text)
    {
        // if current character is separator then advance and
        // set that the previous character was separator
        if (isSeparator(c))
        {
            wasSeparator = true;
            continue;
        }

        // if current character is not separator
        // ... but if previous was separator...
        if (wasSeparator)
        {
            words++;
            wasSeparator = false;
        }
    }

    return words;
}

function isSeparator(c)
{
    var separators = [" ", "\t", "\n", "\r", ",", ";", ".", "!", "?"];
    return separators.includes(c);
}

println(countWords(""));
println(countWords("            "));
println(countWords("JavaScript!!!   "));
println(countWords("     JavaScript"));
println(countWords("    JavaScript is cool      "));
println(countWords("I like to learn JavaScript with codeguppy"));

To quickly verify this solution, copy the code above in this coding editor and press "Run".

Note: The solution was originally designed for codeguppy.com environment, and therefore is making use of println. This is the almost equivalent of console.log in other environments. Please feel free to use your preferred coding playground / environment when implementing your solution.