🔢 Java: How to Count Words in a String

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🧲 Introduction – Why Count Words in Java?

Whether you’re building a text editor, analyzing user input, or creating a word frequency counter, knowing how to count words in a string is a practical skill in Java.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to split a string into words
• Count words using split() and Scanner
• Handle edge cases like multiple spaces or punctuation

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🧮 Method 1: Count Words Using split(" ")

public class WordCounter {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String text = "Java is a powerful programming language";
        String[] words = text.trim().split("\\s+");
        System.out.println("Word count: " + words.length);
    }
}

✅ Explanation:

• trim() removes leading/trailing spaces.
• split("\\s+") splits the string by one or more whitespace characters.
• The length of the array gives the word count.

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📘 Method 2: Count Words Using Scanner

import java.util.Scanner;

public class WordCountScanner {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String text = "Java makes software development easier";
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner(text);
        
        int count = 0;
        while (scanner.hasNext()) {
            scanner.next();
            count++;
        }
        scanner.close();
        System.out.println("Word count: " + count);
    }
}

✅ Explanation:

• Scanner treats white-space separated tokens as words.
• hasNext() checks if more tokens are available.
• Each next() represents a word.

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🧪 Edge Case Handling Example

String messyText = "   Multiple   spaces    and tabs\tare here  ";
String[] words = messyText.trim().split("\\s+");
System.out.println("Word count: " + words.length);

💡 Handles:

• Multiple spaces
• Tabs (\t)
• Leading/trailing white space

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📊 When to Use Which Method?

Method	Best For
split("\\s+")	Simple, fast word count
Scanner	Token-based parsing, flexible extension
Loop with regex	Advanced use-cases (punctuation handling, etc.)

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💡 Tips

• ✅ Always trim() the string to clean leading/trailing spaces.
• ⚠️ Be cautious of empty strings or multiple consecutive spaces.
• ✅ Use regular expressions (\\s+) to avoid splitting too strictly.

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📌 Summary – Word Count in Java

Counting words in Java is a simple yet essential task for many applications involving text processing. Whether you’re parsing input, processing text files, or analyzing user data — this logic is a building block.

🧾 Key Takeaways:

• Use split("\\s+") for reliable whitespace-based word splitting
• Use Scanner for token-based parsing
• Always trim() strings before splitting
• Handle punctuation and special characters as needed

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❓FAQs – Java Word Count

❓ How does split("\\s+") work?

It uses regex to split by one or more whitespace characters, covering spaces, tabs, and newlines.

❓ Can I use this to count words in a file?

Yes! Read file content into a string using Files.readString() or Scanner, then apply the same logic.

❓ What if the string has punctuation?

To ignore punctuation, clean the string using replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z ]", "").

❓ Will split(" ") work?

It works, but won’t handle multiple spaces or tabs properly. Use split("\\s+") instead.

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