Function for word count in Google Docs Apps Script - google-apps-script

Question

Is there a method in Google Apps Scrips that returns the word count from a Google Document?
Lets say I'm writing a report that have a particular limit on word count. It's quite precise and it states exactly 1.8k - 2k words (yes and it's not just a single case, but many...)
In Microsoft Office Word there was a handy status bar at the bottom of the page which automatically updated the word count for me, so I tried to make one using Google Apps Scrips.
Writing a function that rips out whole text out from a current document and then calculates words again and again several times in a minute feels like a nonsense to me. It's completely inefficient and it makes CPU run for nothing but I couldn't find that function for the word count in Docs Reference.
Ctr+Shift+C opens a pop-up that contains it, which means that a function that returns total word count of a Google Document definitely exists...
But I can't find it!
Sigh... I spent few hours digging through Google, but I simply cannot find it, please help!

Answer 1

Wrote a little snippet that might help.
function myFunction() {
var space = " ";
var text = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody().getText();
var words = text.replace(/\s+/g, space).split(space);
Logger.log(words.length);
}

Answer 2

I understand the the request is for a built in function, which I looked for as well, but couldn't find anywhere in the documentation. I had to use polling.
I started with a script like Amit's, but found that I was never matching Google's word count. This is what I had to do to get it work. I know this can't be efficient, but it now matches google docs count most of the time. What I had to do was clean/rebuild the string first, then count it.
function countWords() {
var s = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody().getText();
//this function kept returning "1" when the doc was blank
//so this is how I stopped having it return 1.
if (s.length === 0)
return 0;
//A simple \n replacement didn't work, neither did \s not sure why
s = s.replace(/\r\n|\r|\n/g, " ");
//In cases where you have "...last word.First word..."
//it doesn't count the two words around the period.
//so I replace all punctuation with a space
var punctuationless = s.replace(/[.,\/#!$%\^&\*;:{}=\-_`~()"?“”]/g," ");
//Finally, trim it down to single spaces (not sure this even matters)
var finalString = punctuationless.replace(/\s{2,}/g," ");
//Actually count it
var count = finalString.trim().split(/\s+/).length;
return count;
}

Answer 3

I think this function probably covers most cases for word count with English characters. If I overlooked something, please comment.
function testTheFunction(){
var myDoc = DocumentApp.openByUrl('https://docs.google.com/document/d/?????/edit');
Logger.log(countWordsInDocument(myDoc));
}
function countWordsInDocument(theDoc){
var theText = theDoc.getBody().getText();
var theRegex = new RegExp("[A-Za-z]") // or include other ranges for other languages or numbers
var wordStarted = false;
var theCount = 0;
for(var i=0;i<theText.length;i++){
var theLetter = theText.slice(i,i+1);
if(theRegex.test(theLetter)){
if(!wordStarted){
wordStarted=true;
theCount++;
}
}else if(wordStarted){
wordStarted=false;
}
}
return theCount;
}