Workshop › Text detective › Step 5 of 13

The extra-space trap

What we are doing

Double spaces, spaces at the ends and line breaks give empty "words". We trim the ends and split at any run of spaces.

```js
const words = box.value.trim().split(/\s+/)
```

What it means

• trim() removes spaces at the start and the end.
• /\s+/ is a regular expression: \s is any space-like character (space, tab, line break), + means "one or more".

Your turn

Change the words line as shown.

Skills: Types and values

← Split into words An empty box has no words →

All steps

1. Read the text
2. Count the characters
3. Update as you type
4. Split into words
5. The extra-space trap
6. An empty box has no words
7. Count each word
8. Drop the punctuation
9. The most common word
10. Shift a letter
11. Encode a whole text
12. The secret line
13. Build it yourself: crack the code