Find the Longest Word in a String-Thanks in advance!

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#1

Tell us what’s happening:
Anyone can help to fix my code? My logic is wrong?

Your code so far


function findLongestWordLength(str) {
  let count = 0;
  let length = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
    if (str[i]>="a" && str[i]<="z" || str[i]>="A" && str[i]<="Z") {
      count++;
    } 
    else {
      length.push(count);
      count = 0;
    }
  } 
  return Math.max(length);
}

findLongestWordLength("The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog");

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Link to the challenge:
https://learn.freecodecamp.org/javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures/basic-algorithm-scripting/find-the-longest-word-in-a-string

#2

To find the longest word in the array first convert this string in an array

var largestWord=0

var logestWordinArry=["The"," quick", "brown"," fox", "jumped", "over", "the"," lazy", "dog"]
then you have to iterate through the array

largesWordinArry[0].length 
largesWordinArry[1].length
largesWordinArry[3].length 
largesWordinArry[4].length
use for loop.
to splits sentence into the collection words stored in array, you can use split(' ') 
  now it is exactly like how you find largest number in array
#3 
var sentence='John is going'

for(var i=0;i<name.length;i++){

console.log(sentence[i])
value of i                  and result
0                                J
1                               o
2                               h
3                                n
4                                   space
5                                    i
6                                       s
continue the process
what i mean to say that if you don't split that sentence into the collection of word stored in array, it can only iterate though each letter


}
#4

Your logic is very low level but correct nonetheless, it’s this part that’s messing with your code:

return Math.max(length);

The max method does not take an array as argument, but one or more arguments and then returns the maximum number out of the argument list passed to it:

Math.max([1,2,3]) // NaN
Math.max(1,2,3) // 3

Thankfully there’s a way to make Math.max consume your array as if it were separate arguments:

// The old way with Function.prototype.apply
Math.max.apply(null, [1,2,3]) // 3

// The new, ES6 way with the 'spread operator'
Math.max(...[1,2,3]) // 3

For apply reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/apply
For spread operator reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Spread_syntax

1 Like
#5

Thanks for your answer, I know the split function is a better solution for this challenge, but I still want to confirm whether this way can make sense.

#6

Thanks, you give me a key illustration, I used a wrong argument with the max function.

#7

It’s not really just a better alternative, it’s just shorter and abstracted. What I mean is that .split uses a similar approach but instead of just checking that the current character isn’t an alphabet letter, it uses whatever character, set of characters or RegExp pattern you pass to it; so, you can say it’s more generic and parameterized.

It falls under the same discussion as saying using Array.filter() is better than doing the for loop and if statement yourself. It may be some micro/milliseconds faster but if you already have a generic version inside the language then you may as well use it.

The code you wrote helps you understand what’s happening at a lower level with .split() so I don’t see anything wrong with it. And seeing how you understand there’s a .split() method even before you wrote this code tells me that you’re the curious type of person that wants to understand stuff at a deeper level which is a pretty great trait in software developers.