WordCount()

Category: Text

Syntax: WordCount ( text )

Parameters:

textAny expression that resolves to a text string.

Data type returned: Number

Description:

Returns a count of the number of words in text.

Spaces, return characters, and most punctuation symbols are considered to be word breaks by FileMaker Pro. Multiple word breaks next to each other (for example, two spaces, a comma, and a space) are considered as a single word break.

Certain punctuation symbols are word breaks when separating alpha characters, but not when separating numeric characters. These include the colon (:), slash (/), period (.), comma (,), and dash (-). For instance, WordCount ("54.6") returns 1, but WordCount ("x.y") returns 2. The reason for this behavior is that those symbols are valid date, time, and number separators.

Examples:

Function	Results
WordCount ("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.")	Returns 9.
WordCount (FullName)	Returns 4 when FullName contains "John Q. Public, Jr."