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

Here is a refinement of Abslom Daak's answer that also works in visual mode.

function! WordCount()
  let s:old_status = v:statusmsg
  let position = getpos(".")
  exe ":silent normal g\"
  let stat = v:statusmsg
  let s:word_count = 0
  if stat != '--No lines in buffer--'
    if stat =~ "^Selected"
      let s:word_count = str2nr(split(v:statusmsg)[5])
    else
      let s:word_count = str2nr(split(v:statusmsg)[11])
    end
    let v:statusmsg = s:old_status
  end
  call setpos('.', position)
  return s:word_count 
endfunction

Included in the status line as before. Here is a right-aligned status line:

set statusline=%=%{WordCount()}\ words\