Finding Average Character Per Word in a Single String

Question

i'm kind of stuck on this issue. I'm trying to store 1 or more words in a single string, find the length of all the words combined then divide it by the number of words to find the average. I'm required to do this in a while loop (that's the objective of the homework)

When I enter "Hello my name is" it returns the length as

Result:  
5  
2  
4  
2

But what I want is to add those results then divide it by the amount of words

5+2+4+2 = 13  
13/4 = 3.25

This is what I have so far:

Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);

int counter = 0;
double sum = 0;

while (in.hasNext()) {
    String word = in.next();
    double totalchar = word.length();
    sum = totalchar + sum;
    counter++;


    double average = 0;
    if (counter > 0) {
        average = sum / counter;

    }
    System.out.println(average);
}

Thanks so much for all your help. I was able to send it without needing the break statement after all. Time for some much needed sleep.. — Rimshot, Mar 22 '13 at 08:17

Luiggi Mendoza · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-22T06:29:16.557

2

Just move the average calculation and printing outside the while loop:

while (in.hasNext()) {
    String word = in.next();
    if (word.equals("exit")) {
        break;
    }
    double totalchar = word.length();
    sum = totalchar + sum;
    counter++;
}
double average = 0;
if (counter > 0) {
    average = sum / counter;
}
System.out.println(average);

edited Mar 22 '13 at 06:29

answered Mar 22 '13 at 06:12

Luiggi Mendoza

85,076
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I can't seem to get any output from running this.. perhaps I need to make the while condition false after running once but I'm not sure how to do that. Any suggestions? This would be so much easier in a for loop... – Rimshot Mar 22 '13 at 06:21
@user1723337 answer updated. Please refer to [this answer](http://stackoverflow.com/q/10490344/1065197) in order to understand why I've added the `if` validation in order to break the `while` loop. – Luiggi Mendoza Mar 22 '13 at 06:30
Thank you so much Luiggi. This solved the problem! But some bad news..I have to submit it to an online compiler and it isnt smart enough to see the if statement as a sentinel. It wants to be able to cycle through without having to input any extra data. Could it work if I just used two boolean type variables? Set both to true then after executing once set one of them to false to automatically drop out? Again, your solution completely works but the online submitter is looking for something that only needs user input once. – Rimshot Mar 22 '13 at 07:15
@user1723337 if that's the case, just remove the `if` validation before sending it. I'm sure the bot will provide a file as input and then `in.hasNext()` will return `false` some time. – Luiggi Mendoza Mar 22 '13 at 07:17
Yeah, no luck. Its saying the while loop is infinite. i cant seem to find anything to auto-break the if statement. – Rimshot Mar 22 '13 at 07:26
Try using a `BufferedReader` as explained in learningloop's answer. – Luiggi Mendoza Mar 22 '13 at 07:27

bricklore · Answer 2 · 2013-03-22T06:24:41.800

1

Maybe this helps you:
You have to move the calculation from average outside the while loop
or it would be calculated and printed every time!

I also improved it a little bit. (you dont need double every time)

Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);

int sum = 0;
int counter = 0;

while (in.hasNext())
{
    sum += in.next().length();
    counter++;
}

double average = 0.0;
if (counter > 0)
    average = sum / counter;

System.out.println(average);

edited Mar 22 '13 at 06:24

answered Mar 22 '13 at 06:18

bricklore

4,125
1
34
62

isn't this stated in my answer? – Luiggi Mendoza Mar 22 '13 at 06:19

Kim Honoridez · Answer 3 · 2013-03-22T07:18:43.717

Please see below for an enhanced version of that :

    int counter = 0;
    int sum = 0; // not yet needed to be of type double
    String word = null;

    while (in.hasNext()) {
        word = in.next();
        sum += word.length();
        counter++;
    }

    double average = 0;
    if (counter > 0) {
        average = sum / counter;
    }
    System.out.println(average);

Please declare variables outside when they will be re-assigned in a loop.

It is not good to put your checking on counter inside the loop because you will be creating average over and over again as well as checking the counter if it's 0.
With that, it slows down your processing turnaround time.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 22 '13 at 06:37

Following example is using BufferedReader:

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
class WordAmount {
public static void main(String... args) throws IOException{
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
String line = "";

while((line=br.readLine())!=null) {
   if(line.length() > 0) {
   String[] words = line.split(" ");
   int totalWords = words.length;
   int totalChars = 0;
   System.out.println("Number of words: "+totalWords);
   for(int i=0;i<words.length;i++) {
      System.out.println("Length 0f "+words[i]+" : "+words[i].length());
      totalChars += words[i].length();
   }
   System.out.println("Average count :"+ ((double)totalChars/totalWords));
  }
}
}
}

Finding Average Character Per Word in a Single String

4 Answers4