This is an exercise to practice TDD, focusing on the selection of examples. The nature of the problem adds some difficult to choose the right examples. This happens because several separation rules can be applied to the same word. This can require more than one reason for a test to fail.

The goal of the exercise is to help you develop a sense for identifying good examples for making new tests that can fail for a unique reason.

Imagine that you are working in a text visualization tool that requires hyphenation. To achieve that, you will need an algorithm to separate Spanish words into syllables.

The Spanish language has a bunch of rules for separating a word into Syllables. They are described in different ways depending on the source of information. We decided to use the following, adapted from this document by Instituto Cervantes

A consonant and the following vowel are pronounced in the same syllable, for example:

ma-ra-ca
ti-je-ra

Remember that the letter h is not pronounced except when combined with the letter c to form ch. Keep in mind that ch, ll, and rr, although written as two letters each (hence called "digraphs"), are pronounced as a single sound each, and this is what counts when dividing syllables, for example:

chi-lla
cho-rro

When two consonants are found between two vowels, the first generally forms a syllable with the preceding vowel and the second forms a syllable with the following vowel, for example:

cam-po
sal-to
har-to
an-da

When the last letter of the word is a consonant preceded by a vowel, both remain together.

car-tas
sal
ja-món
pan

When three consonants are found between two vowels, the first two generally form a syllable with the preceding vowel, and the third forms a syllable with the following vowel, for example:

ins-ta
obs-ti-na-do
su-pers-ti-ción

The following consonant pairs (consonant groups) are normally pronounced as a single syllable: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fl, fr, gl, kl, gr, pl, pr, tr. Examples:

ha-blar
te-cla
sa-cro
si-glo
ma-dre
de-trás
hom-bre
in-flar
san-gre
du-pli-ca-do
com-pren-der
en-trar

When four consonants are found between two vowels, the first two form a syllable with the preceding vowel, and the last two form a syllable with the following vowel, for example:

cons-truir
trans-plan-te
abs-trac-to
obs-truir

When an i or a u are next to another vowel, they are usually pronounced as a single syllable, for example:

hay 
fui
pues
cual

When two vowels come together, but neither of them is i nor u, they are usually pronounced in a different syllable, for example:

o-es-te
bo-a
Bil-ba-o

To start, we suggest forgetting about tildes (á, é, í, ó, ú) and capitalized words.

• Node.js (version 18 or higher recommended)
• npm (version 8 or higher recommended)

npm install

• npm run build: Compile TypeScript files to JavaScript
• npm run test: Run tests with Vitest
• npm run lint: Run Biome linter
• npm run format: Format code with Biome

The project uses:

• TypeScript for type-safe JavaScript
• Vitest for testing
• Biome for linting and formatting

Source code goes in src/ directory and tests in test/ directory.