BRWordCounter is a small Objective-C helper for efficiently counting words in a UITextView while editing happens.

Here is an example of how to use the helper, in a UIViewController subclass:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    UITextView *textView = self.textView;
    self.counter = [[BRWordCountHelper alloc] initWithTextView:textView delegate:self];
}

- (void)wordCounter:(BRWordCountHelper *)counter wordCountDidChange:(NSUInteger)count {
    UILabel *wordCountLabel = self.wordCountLabel;
    wordCountLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%lu", (unsigned long)count];
}

There is also a utility method available for counting words in a string:

[BRWordCountHelper countWordsInString:@"The 'quoted' string." finished:^(NSUInteger wordCount) {
    // wordCount == 3 here
}];

By default the BRWordCountHelper class expects to be configured as the delegate on the UITextView it counts the words of. If you need to have a different delegate, you can do so as long as you forward one delegate method on to the BRWordCountHelper as well: textView:shouldChangeTextInRange:replacementText:. For example:

- (BOOL)textView:(UITextView *)textView shouldChangeTextInRange:(NSRange)range replacementText:(NSString *)text {
    // forward this call to our counter...
    [counter textView:textView shouldChangeTextInRange:range replacementText:text];

    // do whatever else needed here...

    return YES;
}

See the CountedWords example iPhone app that comes with the source for a simple example of the code in action.

You can integrate BRWordCounter via CocoaPods or manually as a dependent project.

Install CocoaPods if not already available:

$ [sudo] gem install cocoapods
$ pod setup

Change to the directory of your Xcode project, and create a file named Podfile with contents similar to this:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'

platform :ios, '7.1'

target :MyApp do
    pod 'BRWordCounter', '~> 2.0'
end

Install into your project:

$ pod install

Open your project in Xcode using the .xcworkspace file CocoaPods generated.