Fast word count function in Vim

Question

I am trying to display a live word count in the vim statusline. I do this by setting my status line in my .vimrc and inserting a function into it. The idea of this function

Answer 1

This will recalculate the number of words whenever you stop typing for a while (specifically, updatetime ms).

let g:word_count=""
fun! WordCount()
    return g:word_count
endfun
fun! UpdateWordCount()
    let s = system("wc -w ".expand("%p"))
    let parts = split(s, ' ')
    if len(parts) > 1
        let g:word_count = parts[0]
    endif
endfun

augroup WordCounter
    au! CursorHold * call UpdateWordCount()
    au! CursorHoldI * call UpdateWordCount()
augroup END

" how eager are you? (default is 4000 ms)
set updatetime=500

" modify as you please...
set statusline=%{WordCount()}\ words

Enjoy!