Task — Word count

You are given a list of words containing alphabetic characters only. Write a script to return the count of words either starting with a vowel or ending with a vowel.

Examples

Example 1
Input: @list = ('unicode', 'xml', 'raku', 'perl')
Output: 2
The words are 'unicode' and 'raku'.

Example 2
Input: @list = ('the', 'weekly', 'challenge')
Output: 2

Example 3
Input: @list = ('perl', 'python', 'postgres')
Output: 0

Analysis

This is another challenge where the choice is between a one-liner with a single regular expression or a more verbose version which is easier for someone to maintain when I am not around. As usual, I have gone for the second option.

I have handled the 'starting' and 'ending' cases with separate regular expressions but taken care that that does not result in a count of 2 when a word both starts and ends with a vowel. There are also a few slightly edgy cases such as 'a' or 'I'.

So not a very challenging challenge, but still one that has some scope for serious thought.

Try it 

Try running the script with any input:

Your @words =

example: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

⤡

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Blog: http://ccgi.campbellsmiths.force9.co.uk/challenge

use v5.26;    # The Weekly Challenge - 2025-04-28
use utf8;     # Week 319 - task 1 - Word count
use warnings; # Peter Campbell Smith
binmode STDOUT, ':utf8';
use Encode;

word_count('unicode', 'xml', 'raku', 'perl');
word_count('carrot', 'pear', 'cauliflower', 'turnip');
word_count('a', 'ee', 'iii', 'oooo', 'uuuuu');

sub word_count {
    
    my (@words, $w, $count, $result);
    
    # count words starting or ending with a vowel
    for $w (@_) {
        next unless ($w =~ m|^[aeiou]i| or $w =~ m|[aeiou]$|i);
        $result .= qq['$w', ];
        $count ++;
    }
    
    say qq[\nInput:  ('] . join(q[', '], @_) . q[')];
    say qq[Output: ] . ($count ? qq[$count - ] . substr($result, 0, -2) : '0');
}

Output

Input:  ('unicode', 'xml', 'raku', 'perl')
Output: 2 - 'unicode', 'raku'

Input:  ('carrot', 'pear', 'cauliflower', 'turnip')
Output: 0

Input:  ('a', 'ee', 'iii', 'oooo', 'uuuuu')
Output: 5 - 'a', 'ee', 'iii', 'oooo', 'uuuuu'