Objective-C: -[NSString wordCount]

Question

What's a simple implementation of the following NSString category method that returns the number of words in self, where words are separated by any number of consecutive spaces or newline characters? Also, the string will be less than 140 characters, so in this case, I prefer simplicity & readability at the sacrifice of a bit of performance.

@interface NSString (Additions)
- (NSUInteger)wordCount;
@end

I found the following solutions:

• implementation of -[NSString wordCount]
• implementation of -[NSString wordCount] - seems a bit simpler

But, isn't there a simpler way?

Answer 1

Why not just do the following?

- (NSUInteger)wordCount {
    NSCharacterSet *separators = [NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet];
    NSArray *words = [self componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet:separators];

    NSIndexSet *separatorIndexes = [words indexesOfObjectsPassingTest:^BOOL(id obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL *stop) {
        return [obj isEqualToString:@""];
    }];

    return [words count] - [separatorIndexes count];
}

Answer 2

I believe you have identified the 'simplest'. Nevertheless, to answer to your original question - "a simple implementation of the following NSString category...", and have it posted directly here for posterity:

@implementation NSString (GSBString)

- (NSUInteger)wordCount
{
    __block int words = 0;
    [self enumerateSubstringsInRange:NSMakeRange(0,self.length)
                             options:NSStringEnumerationByWords
                          usingBlock:^(NSString *substring, NSRange substringRange, NSRange enclosingRange, BOOL *stop) {words++;}];
    return words;
}

@end