Regular Expression for accurate word-count using JavaScript

Posted by Haidon on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Haidon
Published on 2011-01-04T12:28:50Z Indexed on 2011/01/04 19:53 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 192

Filed under:

JavaScript

|

regex

|

wordcount

I'm trying to put together a regular expression for a JavaScript command that accurately counts the number of words in a textarea.

One solution I had found is as follows:

document.querySelector("#wordcount").innerHTML = document.querySelector("#editor").value.split(/\b\w+\b/).length -1;

But this doesn't count any non-Latin characters (eg: Cyrillic, Hangul, etc); it skips over them completely.

Another one I put together:

document.querySelector("#wordcount").innerHTML = document.querySelector("#editor").value.split(/\s+/g).length -1;

But this doesn't count accurately unless the document ends in a space character. If a space character is appended to the value being counted it counts 1 word even with an empty document. Furthermore, if the document begins with a space character an extraneous word is counted.

Is there a regular expression I can put into this command that counts the words accurately, regardless of input method?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about JavaScript

CHAT ROOMs 7 by 6

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am looking for chatroom on one page with 7 loggedin users and 6+rows for say 42 users.these users will keep on adding wthnew users.Need urgent help.A PRETTY UNUSUAL Q FOR MOST OF U.What is MORE REQ new features: Usernames are unique to users currently chatting You can see a "currently chatting"… >>> More
Integrating JavaScript Unit Tests with Visual Studio

as seen on Stephen Walter - Search for 'Stephen Walter'
Modern ASP.NET web applications take full advantage of client-side JavaScript to provide better interactivity and responsiveness. If you are building an ASP.NET application in the right way, you quickly end up with lots and lots of JavaScript code. When writing server code, you should be writing… >>> More
Has Javascript developed beyond what it was originally designed to do?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I've been talking with a friend about the purpose of Javascript, when and how it should be used, etc. He quoted that: JavaScript was designed to add interactivity to HTML pages [...] JavaScript gives HTML designers a programming tool HTML authors are normally not programmers… >>> More
PHP, javascript, single quote problems with IE when passing variable from ajax post to javascript fu

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi! I have been trying to get this to work for a while, and I suspect there's an easy solution that I just can't find. My head feels like jelly and I would really appreciate any help. My main page.php makes a .post() to backend.php and fetches a list of cities which it echoes in the form of: <li… >>> More
Javascript in XSL that is loaded by Javascript

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there anyway to have javascript run when a XSL sheet has been applied to an XML file by Javascript? I am using a JQuery plugin to apply the sheet to the xml but the javascript that is located inside of the XSL file will not run. I put the Javascript at the bottom of the file and it still does… >>> More

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More