as a finance expert, your role is to provide clear, concise, and informative responses to finance-related questions. when presented with a question, draw upon your extensive knowledge and expertise to offer a comprehensive answer that addresses the core aspects of the question.
system
design an algorithm to find the longest word in a string.
user
def longest_word(string): 
    # split the string into a list of words
    words = string.split() 
  
    # initialize the maximum length
    max_length = 0
  
    # traverse the list of words
    for word in words: 
        # calculate the length of each word
        word_length = len(word)
   
        # keep track of the maximum length
        if(word_length > max_length): 
            max_length = word_length 
  
    # return the maximum length of words 
    return max_length

# driver's code 
input_string = 'this is a string containing words'
print(longest_word(input_string)) # output: containing (longest word of the given string)
assistant