Counting number of times value appears in an array using .forEach()

Question

I am trying to count the number of sentences in an array using the .forEach iterator on an array. Each time there is a full stop ('.') or an exclamation mark ('!'), it should increment a counter by 1. I was wondering if it was possible to do this using a Javascript iterator.

The array I am filtering through is called betterWords.

The code below returns 0 for some reason and I'm not sure why.

let sentences = 0;
betterWords.forEach(word => {
  if (word === '.' || word === '!') {
     return sentences+=1
  }
});
console.log(sentences)

It was a string which has had a .split(' '); method applied on it. — stormshadow854
– stormshadow854, Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 23:33
@stormshadow854 None of the words in a sentence consist of only . or ! — Bergi
– Bergi, Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 23:34
@Bergi yeah there's a word paired with a '.' or '!'. How would I isolate just the '.' or '!' — stormshadow854
– stormshadow854, Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 23:37
if (word[word.length -1] === '.' || word[word.length -1] === '!') { — Shuai Li
– Shuai Li, Commented Dec 9, 2021 at 23:43

danh · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-10 00:03:49Z

3

I gather that the OP aims to count sentences in a string by counting sentence-terminating punctuation marks like . ! ? (did I miss any?) A regex match will do it. Just count the matches.

const countPunctuation = string => {
  return (string.match(/[.!?]/g) || []).length
}

console.log(countPunctuation("This is a sentence. This is definitely a sentence! Is this a sentence?"))

answered Dec 10, 2021 at 0:03

danh

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Comments

Lars Flieger · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-10 00:05:03Z

0

Your solution was almost correct:

const betterWords = "Hello World! This is a nice text. Awesome!"
let sentences = 0;
betterWords.split('').forEach(word => {
  if (word === '.' || word === '!') {
    return sentences += 1
  }
});
console.log(sentences)

You can not run .forEach on strings. You can only do this on Arrays. With split('') you can transform your string to an array. "ABC" => ["A", "B", "C"]

Using Regex like @danh did is a faster way to solve this problem.

answered Dec 10, 2021 at 0:05

Lars Flieger

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1 Comment

vitaly-t Over a year ago

You can run a for-of iterator, which in effect is the same as forEach.

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