Counting words in string variables?

[René Kopietz]

Hello,

in our latest study we used fill-in-the-blank open responses. We
imported them as string variables. Is there a way/function to count the
used words for a quantitative content analyses?

Thank you very much,
best Rene

[Michael....@colostate.edu]

Here is a bit of syntax I had around to count white spaces,
except ones at the end of a string. With a it of modification,
I think this would work for your problem. Of course, it
counts all words, including articles, prepositions, etc.,
not just substantive words.

* Find and count white spaces in a target string, not counting
* ones at the end of the string .
* Essentially involves tokenizing a blank-delimited string .
string #blank (a1) .
compute #blank = ' '.
compute #strlen = length(rtrim(target)) .
compute k = 0 .
compute #i = 1 .
loop if (#i lt #strlen) .
* Find a white space .
loop .
compute #i = #i + 1 .
end loop if (substr(target,#i,1) eq #blank ) or
(#i = #strlen) .
* Skip past white space if not at end of string .
do if (#i lt #strlen).
compute k = k + 1 . /* count white space
loop if not (#i = #strlen) and /* skip pass current white space
(substr(target, #i,1) eq #blank) .
compute #i = #i + 1 .
end loop .
end if .
end loop .

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Mike Lacy, Ft Collins CO 80523
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