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PHP | Count the total number of words in a string

Given a string. Learn, how to count total words in it?
Submitted by Bhanu Sharma, on August 10, 2019 [Last updated : March 13, 2023]

PHP - Counting String Words

Given a string and we have to count the total number of words in it.

str_word_count() function

To find the total number of words in a string, we can use str_word_count() function – which is a library function in PHP – it returns the total number of words in the string.

Syntax

    str_word_count(string,return,char);

Here,

• string is a required parameter, this is the string in which we have to find the total number of words.
• return – it is an optional parameter used for specifying the return type – it can accept three values
  • 0 – Which is the default value, it specifies the return the number of words in the string.
  • 1 – It specifies the return of the array with the words.
  • 2 – It specifies the return of the array where key is the position and value is the actual word.
• char – it is an optional parameter – it is used to specify a special character to consider as a word.

PHP code to count the total number of words in a string

<?php
//input string
$str = "The Quick brown fox jumps right over The Lazy Dog";
//counting the words by calling str_word_count function
$response = str_word_count($str);
//printing the result
echo "There are ".$response." Words in <b>".$str."</b>".'<br/>';

//input string
$str = "Hello @ 123 . com";
//counting the words by calling str_word_count function
$response = str_word_count($str);
//printing the result
echo "There are ".$response." Words in <b>".$str."</b>".'<br/>';

//input string
$str = "Hello @ IncludeHelp @ com";
//counting the words by calling str_word_count function
//specify the '@' as a word
$response = str_word_count($str, 0, '@');
//printing the result
echo "There are ".$response." Words in <b>".$str."</b>".'<br/>';
?>

Output

There are 10 Words in The Quick brown fox jumps right over The Lazy Dog
There are 2 Words in Hello @ 123 . com
There are 5 Words in Hello @ IncludeHelp @ com

Explanation

In PHP, We have the function str_word_count() to count the number of words in a string. We use the same to get the number of words in the string ($str) and store the output of the function in ($response) then use echo to print the result.

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