Question

I am reading a file which contains approx 1200 words in the following format:

words:a:/zenb:/fixx:/wew:/sina:/benb:/sixx:/hew:/bin

I need to find how many keywords are there in that text file, by keyword i mean:

zen fix we sin ben six he bin

Right now I am trying to do it with RegExp like this:

var s:String = "words:b:sa:/zenb:/fixx:/wew:/sina:/benb:/sixx:/hew:/bin";
var pattern:RegExp = /:/+/g;
var results:Array = s.match(pattern);
trace(results.length); 

Its producing an error, since I am a beginner I really don’t understand how this RegExp work , are there any alternate methods to get the same results?

Thanks

Answer 1

Your var pattern:RegExp = /:/+/g; has a syntax error, you skipped a backslash \ change this to :

var pattern:RegExp = /:\/+/g;

and it should work, Alternatively with this format you can use the String split method to get the total word count. Try this:

var s:String = "words:b:sa:/zenb:/fixx:/wew:/sina:/benb:/sixx:/hew:/bin";
var wordCount:Number = s.split(":/").length -1;
trace( wordCount );

Hope that works.