Number Of Segments In A String

To solve this coding challenge, we need to determine the number of segments in a given string. A segment is defined as a contiguous sequence of non-space characters. For example, in the string "Hello, my name is John," the segments are ["Hello,", "my", "name", "is", "John"], leading to a total of 5 segments.

Explanation

  1. Understand the Problem : The task is to count how many segments (substrings separated by spaces) there are in a string
    s
    .
  2. Constraints and Edge Cases :
    • The string can be empty, which should return 0 segments.
    • The string may consist of special characters, digits, and letters.
    • Consecutive spaces should not be counted as separate segments.
  3. Plan :
    • If the string is empty, directly return 0 segments.
    • Use a method to split the string by spaces and count the resulting substrings.
    • The built-in
      split()
      function splits the string by spaces automatically, discarding any empty splits caused by consecutive spaces.
    • Thus, counting the length of the list produced by
      split()
      gives the number of segments.
    Let's illustrate the idea using detailed pseudocode:
                                                
    # Function to count the number of segments in a string
    function countSegments(inputString):
    # Check if the string is empty
    if inputString is empty:
    return 0  # Return 0 segments since there's no content
    
    # Split the string by spaces to get all segments
    segments = inputString.split()  # This will create a list of segments
    
    # The length of the segments list is the number of segments
    return length(segments)
    
                                            

    Detailed Steps in Pseudocode

  4. Input : A string
    s
    which can contain letters, digits, special characters, and spaces.
  5. Check Empty String :
    • If
      s
      is empty, return 0.
    •                                             
      if s is empty:
      return 0
      
                                              
  6. Split the String :
    • Use the
      split()
      method which splits the string at spaces and handles consecutive spaces automatically by discarding empty strings from the result.
    •                                             
      segments = s.split()
      
                                              
  7. Count the Segments :
    • The length of the resultant list
      segments
      gives the count of segments.
    •                                             
      numberOfSegments = length(segments)
      return numberOfSegments
      
                                              
By using the above steps, we ensure that the problem is solved efficiently and accurately, even when there are multiple consecutive spaces or special characters. This is a straightforward approach because the
split()
function simplifies handling spaces and breaks the string into needed segments. Additionally, this method ensures that even edge cases, such as strings with multiple spaces, are handled correctly.