Character/word Counter help.

[Slushqueen]

I'm working on a debugging assignment and I'm stuck! Can anyone give me a tip on where to start with this? I'm so lost! It is to display the number of words in a sentence then give the average of the characters per sentence and display each individual word in a list box.

Here is my code:

'Determine word count and average letters / word in the sentence
        Dim iLength As Integer          'length of string
        Dim iWords As Integer           'number of words in sentence
        Dim iLetterCount As Integer     'count of letters
        Dim sWord As String             'current word
        Dim sPrevLetter As String       'previous letter
        Dim x As Integer                'loop counter
        Dim sLetter As String           'current letter from sentence
        Dim sLine As String = txtInput.Text.Trim.ToLower    'entered text  - no leading or trailing spaces - make all lowercase

        Try
            iLength = sLine.Length
            If iLength = 0 Then
                'nothing entered
                MessageBox.Show("Please enter a sentence.")
            Else
                sWord = 0
                sPrevLetter = 0
                For x = 0 To iLength
                    sLetter = sLine.Chars(x)  'get Next Letter
                    Select Case sLetter
                        Case "a" To "z"
                            'we are in a word - increment letter counter
                            sLetter = sWord



                        Case Else
                            'we are in a break between words
                            If sPrevLetter <> " " Then  'we don't want to count succesive spaces as a word
                                'add word to list
                                lstLetters.Items.Add(sWord)
                                sWord = ""  'reset for next word
                            End If
                    End Select
                    sPrevLetter = sLetter
                Next
                If sWord <> "" Then
                    lstLetters.Items.Add(sWord)
                End If
                lblAverage.Text = "Average letters per word: " & iLetterCount / iLength
                lblWordCount.Text = "Words Counted: " & lstLetters.Items.Count
            End If

        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
        End Try
   End Sub

[Slushqueen]

I'm not looking to have someone do the assignment for me at all...just point me in a direction to get started. Thank you!

[kvprajapati]

Code to count words

Dim sLine As String = "This   is   teh   sample    text"

Dim Count As Integer = sLine.Split(New String() {" ", ",", "?"}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Count