Count characters

A special C# method can count characters in a string. Microsoft Word has an option to count characters including spaces or not including spaces.

In C# programs we can duplicate the logic from Microsoft Word. We test the solution against a word processor to ensure correctness.

Example

I tested a real-world text file with Word and developed two methods that closely match Microsoft Office's result. For the character count, we treat many spaces together as one.

using System;

class Program
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        const string input = "There is a cat, my friend.  How are you?";
        int result1 = CountChars(input);
        int result2 = CountNonSpaceChars(input);
        Console.WriteLine(result1);
        Console.WriteLine(result2);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Return the number of characters in a string using the same method
    /// as Microsoft Word 2007. Sequential spaces are not counted.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="value">String to count chars.</param>
    /// <returns>Number of chars in string.</returns>
    static int CountChars(string value)
    {
        int result = 0;
        bool lastWasSpace = false;

        foreach (char c in value)
        {
            if (char.IsWhiteSpace(c))
            {
                // Only count sequential spaces one time.
                if (lastWasSpace == false)
                {
                    result++;
                }
                lastWasSpace = true;
            }
            else
            {
                // Count other characters every time.
                result++;
                lastWasSpace = false;
            }
        }
        return result;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Counts the number of non-whitespace characters.
    /// It closely matches Microsoft Word 2007.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="value">String to count non-whitespaces.</param>
    /// <returns>Number of non-whitespace chars.</returns>
    static int CountNonSpaceChars(string value)
    {
        int result = 0;
        foreach (char c in value)
        {
            if (!char.IsWhiteSpace(c))
            {
                result++;
            }
        }
        return result;
    }
}
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Tests

We discuss the accuracy of the methods when compared to Microsoft Word. I tested the two methods against Microsoft Word to make sure they are accurate.

Microsoft Word char count: 834
             Method count: 830 [off by 4]

Word non-whitespace count: 667
             Method count: 667 [exact]

Discussion

These methods are helpful when dealing with many documents. They allow you to more accurately test the logical length of a file.

Here we saw methods that can count characters and non-whitespace characters. The results are similar to those of Microsoft Word.