Function to return number of words in a string?

You can use a combination of regex
(http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/functions-matching.html#FUNCTIONS-POSIX-REGEXP)
and strpos inside a plpgsql function to do this, but using plpython or
plperl might be faster. A C function would possibly be faster still.

On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 11:21:28AM -0500, Peter Fein wrote:

Hiya-

I'm looking for a function to return the number of words in a string,
split on whitespace. I'm coming from python, so I may just write it in
that but I wanted to check first. In python, one would write:

s="some string or other"
len(s.split())

Thanks!

--
Peter Fein pfein@pobox.com 773-575-0694

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On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 11:49:41AM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote:

You can use a combination of regex
(http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/functions-matching.html#FUNCTIONS-POSIX-REGEXP)
and strpos inside a plpgsql function to do this, but using plpython or
plperl might be faster. A C function would possibly be faster still.

On Mon, May 09, 2005 at 11:21:28AM -0500, Peter Fein wrote:

Hiya-

I'm looking for a function to return the number of words in a string,
split on whitespace. I'm coming from python, so I may just write it in
that but I wanted to check first. In python, one would write:

s="some string or other"
len(s.split())

abacus=> select array_upper(string_to_array('one two three four', ' '), 1);
array_upper
-------------
4
(1 row)

Not that this is a _good_ way of doing it, but it is possible without resorting
to a PL.

Cheers,
Steve

On 05/09/05 11:21 AM CDT, Peter Fein <pfein@pobox.com> said:

Hiya-

I'm looking for a function to return the number of words in a string,
split on whitespace. I'm coming from python, so I may just write it
in that but I wanted to check first. In python, one would write:

s="some string or other"
len(s.split())

For the archives:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION word_length(text)
RETURNS int4 AS
'return len(args[0].split())'
LANGUAGE 'plpythonu' IMMUTABLE STRICT;

Thanks all.

--
Peter Fein pfein@pobox.com 773-575-0694

Basically, if you're not a utopianist, you're a schmuck. -J. Feldman