Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Dictionaries Word Count

Posted by Mohammad Aslam
Mohammad Aslam
6,053 Points

Changing a string of words into a dictionary

Can someone please advise what I am doing wrong? The function is supposed to change a string into a dictionary of word and the frequency with which the word occurs in the string.

Also, I am not sure why we need to convert the string into a list first. Can't we just iterate through each word in the string instead of converting the string to a list?

Appreciate your help.

wordcount.py 
# E.g. word_count("I do not like it Sam I Am") gets back a dictionary like:
# {'i': 2, 'do': 1, 'it': 1, 'sam': 1, 'like': 1, 'not': 1, 'am': 1}
# Lowercase the string to make it easier.

def word_count(string):
    s = string.lower()
    l = s.split(" ")
    dictionary = {}
    for word in l:
        value = l.count(word)
        dictionary[word] = value
    return dictionary

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points

Converting a string into a list, where each word is a separate list item, makes it easy to then iterate through the words.

Extracting individual words out the string directly would make the iteration considerably more complicated.

Mohammad Aslam
Mohammad Aslam
6,053 Points
Mohammad Aslam
Mohammad Aslam
6,053 Points

Thanks