How to count the number of words in a sentence, ignoring numbers, punctuation and whitespace?

Question

How would I go about counting the words in a sentence? I\'m using Python.

For example, I might have the string:

string = \"I     am having  a   very         


        

Answer 1

This is a simple word counter using regex. The script includes a loop which you can terminate it when you're done.

#word counter using regex
import re
while True:
    string =raw_input("Enter the string: ")
    count = len(re.findall("[a-zA-Z_]+", string))
    if line == "Done": #command to terminate the loop
        break
    print (count)
print ("Terminated")

Answer 2

You can use regex.findall():

import re
line = " I am having a very nice day."
count = len(re.findall(r'\w+', line))
print (count)