Finding out how many words are in the text input of JTextField

Question

I'm having the hardest time finding out how to code how many words there are in the input for the JTextField, I have a set a clear input button, and once I figure out how to find out how many words there are, I'll be able to clear that as well. Thanks guys here's my code!

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class CopyTextPanel extends JPanel
{
private JTextField input;
private JLabel output, inlabel, outlabel;
private JButton compute, clear;
private JPanel panel;

public CopyTextPanel()
{
    inlabel = new JLabel("Input Text:  ");
    outlabel = new JLabel("Text Statistics Results: ");
    input = new JTextField (" ", 25);
    output = new JLabel();
    compute = new JButton("Compute Statistics");
    compute.addActionListener (new ButtonListener());
    clear = new JButton("Clear Text");
    clear.addActionListener (new ButtonListener());
    panel = new JPanel();

    output.setPreferredSize (new Dimension(550, 30));
    panel.setPreferredSize (new Dimension(620, 100));
    panel.setBackground(Color.gray);
    panel.add(inlabel);
    panel.add(input);
    //panel.add(outlabel);
    //panel.add(output);
    panel.add(compute);
    panel.add(clear);
    panel.add(outlabel);
    panel.add(output);

    setPreferredSize (new Dimension(700, 150));
    setBackground(Color.cyan);
    add(panel);
}

private class ButtonListener implements ActionListener
{
    public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent event)
    {
        if (event.getSource()==compute)
        {
            {
                output.setText (input.getText());                     
            }
        }
        else
            input.setText("");
    }
}

Your basic problem can be better summed up as, "how to count the number of words in a string", I'd suggest do some research on that subject first, as the rest of the code has little to do with solving that issue — MadProgrammer, Oct 17 '17 at 21:33
You should look into regular expressions. They are very useful for doing what you are trying to do. — luckydog32, Oct 17 '17 at 21:39

Duloren · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-17T22:35:05.277

4

For small piece of text like that one in an inputText you could use split to generate a string array with the string break into words and so read the array's length:

String test = "um dois      tres quatro        cinco ";
String [] splitted = test.trim().split("\\p{javaSpaceChar}{1,}");
System.out.println(splitted.length);

//output 5

So, for your input:

String inputText = input.getText();
String [] splitted = inputText.trim().split("\\p{javaSpaceChar}{1,}");
int numberOfWords = splitted.length;

edited Oct 17 '17 at 22:35

answered Oct 17 '17 at 21:39

Duloren

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Amazing! Thank you! I got it to work and now I'm just wondering if I understand it properly. I understand the inputtext variable sets the intput.getText(); to a string. What I don't understand it why I get an error if I just put Stringp[] splitted = inputText.split("\\s"); for spaces and why I need to add all the other method calls. Thanks againA – GonePhisin Oct 17 '17 at 23:37
I did thank you! Could you help me understand better with the String array works instead of just typing in Stringp[] splitted = inputText.split("\\s"); – GonePhisin Oct 17 '17 at 23:46
You are welcome. Well, the two approach are similar in some way. The solution tho use is a kind of more robust since cover a all blank spaces situations. Please refer to this answer to more accurate response: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4731164/3055724 – Duloren Oct 18 '17 at 00:17

Finding out how many words are in the text input of JTextField

1 Answers1