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text_counter

GitHub repo Gitee repo pub version LICENSE

A lightweight Dart utility for accurately counting characters and words in over 100 languages, including CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), RTL (Right-to-Left) scripts like Arabic and Hebrew, and mixed-language texts.

text_counter uses Microsoft Word-compatible word counting logic, ensuring consistent and familiar results across different writing systems. This makes it ideal for applications requiring accurate text metrics — such as content editors, writing tools, and input validation systems.

✨ Features

  • ✅ Uses Microsoft Word's word counting rules:
    • Words are split by whitespace and common punctuation.
    • Hyphenated words (e.g., "state-of-the-art") are counted as a single word.
    • Numbers and symbols are treated appropriately based on context.
  • ✅ Language-aware counting strategies:
    • CJK (Character-based): Each character is counted individually (used for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.).
    • Latin & RTL scripts (Word-based): Standard word-based counting using appropriate delimiters and tokenization.
  • 🔍 Automatic language/script detection for mixed-language texts.
  • ⚡ Lightweight and dependency-free: No external libraries required.
  • 🌐 Supports over 100 languages out of the box.

📦 Installation

Add this to your package's pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  text_counter: ^0.1.2

Then run:

dart pub get

🧪 Usage

Basic Example

import 'package:text_counter/text_counter.dart';

void main() {
  print('Chinese: ${TextCounter.count("你好，世界", languageCode: "zh")}'); // 5
  print('Japanese: ${TextCounter.count("こんにちは世界", languageCode: "ja")}'); // 7
  print('Korean: ${TextCounter.count("안녕하세요 세상", languageCode: "ko")}'); // 7
  print('Arabic: ${TextCounter.count("مرحبا بالعالم", languageCode: "ar")}'); // 2
  print('Hebrew: ${TextCounter.count("שלום עולם", languageCode: "he")}'); // 2
  print('English: ${TextCounter.count("Hello world", languageCode: "en")}'); // 2

  const mixed = "Hello 你好 مرحبا こんにちは";
  print('Mixed Text "$mixed": ${TextCounter.count(mixed)}'); // 9
}

🗺️ Supported Languages

Script Type Language Codes
CJK (Character-based) zh, yue, ja, ko, th, hi, bn, ta, te, kn,ml, si, km, my, lo, tl, jw, su, bo, dz
RTL (Word-based) ml, si, km, my, lo, tl, jw, su, bo, dz
Latin (Word-based) All other ISO 639-1 language codes not listed above, including: en, de, es, fr, it, pt, nl, tr, pl, ca, sv, id, fi, vi, hi, uk, el, ms, cs, ro, da, hu, no, th ...

If no languageCode is provided, the library automatically detects script types and applies appropriate counting rules.

🛠️ How It Works

  • For CJK languages, each ideographic or logographic character is counted individually.
  • For Latin and RTL scripts, standard word boundaries are detected using whitespace and punctuation patterns similar to those used by Microsoft Word.
  • In mixed-language texts, the counter dynamically switches between counting methods depending on the script being used.

🧩 Use Cases

  • Content management systems
  • Rich-text editors
  • Writing apps with word limits
  • Language learning platforms
  • Analytics dashboards
  • Form validation utilities

📚 API Reference

int TextCounter.count(String text, {String? languageCode})
  • text: The input string to be analyzed.
  • languageCode: Optional BCP 47 language code (e.g., "en" for English, "zh" for Chinese). If omitted, auto-detection is used.

📎 License

MIT License – see LICENSE

Libraries

text_counter