title: Writing a word count program in C
body: <p>In this program a word is defined by any sequence of characters that does not include a 
  <em>"-"</em>,
  <em>" "</em>,
  <em>"\n"</em>,
  <em>":"</em> or
  <em>"\t"</em>.</p>
  
  <p>So <em>"howdy-hi:slig"</em> would be three words in this program.</p>
  
  <pre><code>while ((iochar = getchar()) != EOF) {
  
      if (iochar == '\n') {
          line++;
          word++;
      }
  
      if (iochar == ':' || iochar == '-' || iochar == '\t' || iochar == ' ') {
          word++;
      } 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Instead of incrementing <em>word</em> everytime a whitespace is encountered, I know I need to skip all the extra whitespace characters that can separate two words,
  so that <em>"hello - my : name is Earl."</em> counts 5 words instead of 8.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you, I appreciate it.</p>