use strict;
use warnings;
my $count;
# get $input from some place
$input =~ s/^\s+//; # dump leading whitespace
while ($input =~ s/[^\s]+\s+//)
{
  ++$count;
}
++$count if ($input =~ /./); # catch the last word

##</code><code>##

my @array = split /\s+/, $input;
$count = scalar (@array);