The following function can be used to get the number of words in a string.
Call the function like ShowMessage(IntToStr(GetWordCount('test string, 1 2 3')));
//Function starts here
function GetWordCount(const SourceStr: string): Longint;
var
i, len: Longint;
WordSeparators: string;
begin
Result := 0;
WordSeparators := ' ,.;'; { If needed then add more string separators }
i := 1;
len := Length(SourceStr); { Get the length of source string and assign to a variable }
while i <= len do
begin
if Pos(SourceStr[i], WordSeparators) = 0 then
{ i.e currenct char is a valid word character like a, b, c etc. }
begin
{ Enter a loop that will end if a word separator charcter like ., space etc. found }
while (i <= len) and (Pos(SourceStr[i], WordSeparators) = 0) do
Inc(i);
Inc(Result);
end;
Inc(i);
end;
end;