Count the number of words read from a file and stored in a list by accessing the list

Question

I am reading from the disk and storing the contents of a file using:

BufferedReader br = Files.newBufferedReader(Paths.get(file)))

and then

list = br.lines().collect(Collectors.toList());

The list is accessible from other methods in the class. How do I use it to get the count of words read from the file. I have tried list.count() but it gives a wrong value.

I tried a few lambda functions even those were giving me only the count of distinct words but not the total word count. Any insights will be appreciated.

Answer 1

You read lines, not words.

If you want the number of words in a file, use

int numLines;
try (var lines = Files.lines(Path.of(file))) {
    numLines = lines.filter(l -> !l.isBlank()).mapToInt(w -> w.split("\\h").length).sum()
}

Answer 2

Since it's a list of lines, you will need a way of counting the words in a line:

private static int countWordsInLine(String line) {
    line = line.trim();
    return line.isEmpty() ? 0 : line.split("\\s+").length;
}

From there, you just need to sum over the lines in the list:

private int wordCount() {
    return lines.stream().mapToInt(ThisClass::countWordsInLine).sum();
}

Replace ThisClass with the name of the class that countWordsInLine is declared in.