In this article, we are going to see how to count words in Text Files using Python.
Example 1: Count String Words
First, we create a text file of which we want to count the number of words. Let this file be SampleFile.txt with the following contents:
File for demonstration:
Below is the implementation:
Python3
# creating variable to store the# number of wordsnumber_of_words = 0Â
# Opening our text file in read only# mode using the open() functionwith open(r'SampleFile.txt','r') as file:Â
    # Reading the content of the file    # using the read() function and storing    # them in a new variable    data = file.read()Â
    # Splitting the data into separate lines    # using the split() function    lines = data.split()Â
    # Adding the length of the    # lines in our number_of_words    # variable    number_of_words += len(lines)Â
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# Printing total number of wordsprint(number_of_words) |
Output:Â
7
Explanation:Â
- Creating a new variable to store the total number of words in the text file. And then open the text file in read-only mode using the open() function.
- Read the content of the file using the read() function and storing them in a new variable. And then split the data stored in the data variable into separate lines using the split() function and then storing them in a new variable. And add the length of the lines in our number_of_words variable.
Example 2: Count the number of words, not Integer
File for demonstration:Â
Below is the implementation:Â
Python3
# creating variable to store the# number of wordsnumber_of_words = 0Â
# Opening our text file in read only# mode using the open() functionwith open(r'SampleFile.txt','r') as file:Â
    # Reading the content of the file    # using the read() function and storing    # them in a new variable    data = file.read()Â
    # Splitting the data into separate lines    # using the split() function    lines = data.split()Â
    # Iterating over every word in    # lines    for word in lines:Â
        # checking if the word is numeric or not        if not word.isnumeric():         Â
            # Adding the length of the            # lines in our number_of_words            # variable            number_of_words += 1Â
# Printing total number of wordsprint(number_of_words) |
Output:
11
Explanation: Create a new variable to store the total number of words in the text file and then open the text file in read-only mode using the open() function. Read the content of the file using the read() function and storing them in a new variable and then split the data stored in the data variable into separate lines using the split() function and then storing them in a new variable, Iterating over every word in lines using the for loop and check if the word is numeric or not using the isnumeric() function then add 1 in our number_of_words variable.
