How to count spaces in a string variable

Question

I need to count words in a string variable by counting spaces. Also i need to count sentences by counting dots. I use member function at() to get a character and compare it but for some reason my Xcode compiler won't let me do that. here is my header file:

#ifndef SPEECHANALYST_H
#define SPEECHANALYST_H

#include <stdio.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

namespace marina
{
class SpeechAnalyst : public string
{
public:
SpeechAnalyst () : std::string()
{};
void clear( ); // resets everything...
void addData( char * stuff );
void addStringData( std::string stuff );

int getNumberOfWords( ) const;
int getNumberOfSentences( ) const;

friend ostream& operator << ( ostream& outs, const SpeechAnalyst & sa );  //         prints the data seen so far!

private:
std::string myData;


};
}
#endif /* SpeechAnalyst_h */

And this is my implementation file:

 #include "SpeechAnalyst.h"
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <iostream>
 #include <string>
 using namespace std;


namespace marina
{
   void SpeechAnalyst::clear( )
   {
     myData.clear();
   }



    void SpeechAnalyst::addStringData( std::string stuff )
   {
      myData += stuff;

   }

   void SpeechAnalyst::addData( char * stuff )
   {
    string line;
    line=stuff;
    myData += line;
    }

    int SpeechAnalyst::getNumberOfWords( ) const
    {
    int i,words=0,sentence=0;
    for (i=0; i<myData.length(); ++i)
       {
        if (myData.at(i) == " ")
            words++;
        }
      return words;
    }


    }

So the errors that compiler sees are: 1)Result of comparison against a string literal is unspecified (use strncmp instead) 2)Comparison between pointer and integer ('int' and 'const char *')

Both of the error are at the line "if (myData.at(i) == " ")"

What if there are two or more space characters next to each other? Counting spaces is a poor way to count the number of words. Why not just count the number of words? — PaulMcKenzie, Feb 10 '17 at 20:53
that is an assignment and my professor explicitly asked to use spaces and dots @PaulMcKenzie — Marina, Feb 10 '17 at 20:55
That doesn't really answer my question. What if there are two or more spaces between words? What if the data is `Joe[sp][sp][sp]Smith`? How many words are there? 3? — PaulMcKenzie, Feb 10 '17 at 20:56
Whenever you need to *count* anything in a container, then you should use [`std::count` or `std::count_if`](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/algorithm/count). That's what they are there for. — Some programmer dude, Feb 10 '17 at 21:00
@Someprogrammerdude It won't let me up vote that anymore but I would if I could. — NathanOliver, Feb 10 '17 at 21:01
Possible duplicate http://stackoverflow.com/q/3672234/1691223 — Shravan40, Feb 10 '17 at 21:09

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 10 '17 at 21:17

2

I don't think you're far off with your own solution.

Try this:

if (myData.at(i) == ' ')

Instead of yours:

if (myData.at(i) == " ")

With " " you're creating an array of characters versus ' ' which creates one character.

answered Feb 10 '17 at 21:17

Chringo

131
2
12

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 10 '17 at 21:13

int number_of_spaces = 0;
int number_of_dots = 0;
for (auto& iter : input_text)
{
    if (iter == ' ')
    {
        number_of_spaces++;
    }
    else if (iter == '.')
    {
        number_of_dots++;
    }
}

This code counts the number of white spaces and dots. It doesn't count like tab new line or carriage return.

How to count spaces in a string variable

2 Answers2