A Small Program

This program counts the words in a file. It uses command-line arguments, file I/O, functions, loops, and a dict.

Save it as words.whim:

use Whim\Env;
use Whim\File;
use Whim\Str;

function count_words(string $text): dict<string, int> {
  $counts = dict[];
  $words = Str\split(Str\lowercase($text), ' ');

  foreach ($words as $word) {
    $word = Str\trim($word);
    if ($word == '') {
      continue;
    }

    if (!contains_key!($counts, $word)) {
      $counts[$word] = 0;
    }

    $counts[$word]++;
  }

  return $counts;
}

$arguments = Env\get_arguments();
if (length!($arguments) < 1) {
  write_error_line!('usage: whim words.whim <file>');
  exit!(2);
}

$text = File\read($arguments[0]);
$counts = count_words($text);

foreach ($counts as $word => $count) {
  write_line!($word . ': ' . $count);
}

Run it:

whim words.whim README.md

Env\get_arguments() contains the arguments after the source file. The input path is at index 0.

dict[] creates an empty dict. Reading a missing key throws, so the program uses contains_key! before it reads the count. The first word starts at zero, then ++ adds one.

Dicts keep insertion order. The last loop prints words in the order in which the program first found them.

This parser splits only on spaces. A full word parser would also handle tabs, newlines, and punctuation. This example keeps the parser short so it can focus on the language.