Maximum Number of Words Found in Sentences

Maximum Number of Words Found in Sentences - Problem

Array String Easy

Imagine you're analyzing a collection of sentences to find the most verbose one! 📝

A sentence is defined as a list of words separated by exactly one space with no leading or trailing spaces. You're given an array of strings called sentences, where each sentences[i] represents a single, well-formatted sentence.

Your task is to return the maximum number of words that appear in any single sentence from the array.

Example: If you have sentences like ["I love programming", "Code every day to improve", "Hello"], the answer would be 5 because "Code every day to improve" contains the most words.

Input & Output

example_1.py — Basic Case

$ Input: ["alice and bob love leetcode", "i think so too", "this is great thanks very much"]

› Output: 6

💡 Note: The first sentence has 5 words, second has 4 words, and third has 6 words. Maximum is 6.

example_2.py — Single Word Sentences

$ Input: ["please wait", "continue to fight", "continue to win"]

› Output: 3

💡 Note: The sentences have 2, 3, and 3 words respectively. Maximum is 3.

example_3.py — Single Sentence

$ Input: ["hello world"]

› Output: 2

💡 Note: Only one sentence with 2 words, so the maximum is 2.

Constraints

1 ≤ sentences.length ≤ 100
1 ≤ sentences[i].length ≤ 100
sentences[i] consists only of lowercase English letters and spaces
sentences[i] does not have leading or trailing spaces
All words in sentences[i] are separated by exactly one space

Visualization

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Understanding the Visualization

Judge listens to first speaker

Count words: 'alice and bob love leetcode' = 5 words

Judge listens to second speaker

Count words: 'i think so too' = 4 words (less than 5)

Judge listens to third speaker

Count words: 'this is great thanks very much' = 6 words (new max!)

Announce the winner

The most talkative speaker used 6 words

Key Takeaway

🎯 Key Insight: We only need to iterate through each sentence once and count its words, keeping track of the maximum count as we go!

Asked in

a Amazon 15 G Google 12 ⊞ Microsoft 8 f Meta 6

The optimal approach uses the built-in string split function to break each sentence into words and count them. This gives us O(n × m) time complexity where n is the number of sentences and m is the average sentence length. The solution is clean, readable, and leverages optimized built-in functions for the best practical performance.

Common Approaches

Approach	Time	Space	Notes
✓ Brute Force (Manual Word Counting)	O(n × m)	O(1)	Iterate through each sentence and manually count words by examining each character
Split String Method (Optimal)	O(n × m)	O(k)	Use built-in string split function to count words efficiently in one pass

Brute Force (Manual Word Counting) — Algorithm Steps

Initialize maxWords to 0
For each sentence in the array:
Initialize wordCount to 1 (for the first word)
Iterate through each character in the sentence
If character is a space, increment wordCount
Update maxWords if current wordCount is greater

Visualization

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Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Start with sentence

Begin with first sentence and set word count to 1

Scan characters

Go through each character looking for spaces

Count spaces

Each space indicates another word, so increment counter

Update maximum

Compare with current maximum and update if higher

Code -

solution.c — C

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int mostWordsFound(char** sentences, int sentencesSize) {
    int maxWords = 0;
    
    for (int i = 0; i < sentencesSize; i++) {
        if (strlen(sentences[i]) == 0) continue;
        
        int wordCount = 1; // Start with 1 for the first word
        for (int j = 0; sentences[i][j] != '\0'; j++) {
            if (sentences[i][j] == ' ') {
                wordCount++;
            }
        }
        
        if (wordCount > maxWords) {
            maxWords = wordCount;
        }
    }
    
    return maxWords;
}

int main() {
    // Parse input and call solution
    char* sentences[] = {"alice and bob love leetcode", "i think so too"};
    int size = 2;
    printf("%d\n", mostWordsFound(sentences, size));
    return 0;
}

Time & Space Complexity

Time Complexity

⏱️

O(n × m)

Where n is the number of sentences and m is the average length of each sentence

✓ Linear Growth

Space Complexity

O(1)

Only using a few variables to track counts

✓ Linear Space

98.4K Views

Medium Frequency

~8 min Avg. Time

2.8K Likes

Ln 1, Col 1

Smart Actions

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Input & Output

Constraints

Visualization

Related Problems

Common Approaches

Brute Force (Manual Word Counting) — Algorithm Steps

Visualization

Code -

Time & Space Complexity

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