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Python Python Collections (Retired) Dictionaries Word Count

Shrinivas Ganesan
PLUS
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points
Posted by Shrinivas Ganesan
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points

Code working fine on workspace but not in the code challenge

I got the following output on the workspace for my code:

Your dict is:
{'sea': 2, 'sells': 1, 'she': 1, 'shore': 1, 'the': 1, 'shells': 1, 'on': 1}

But the same code on the code challenge gives me an output which says ,"Didn't get the count right on some words".

Can't figure out where I'm going wrong with this. I'd really appreciate some help. Thanks!

word_count.py 
def word_count(string):

    my_string = string.lower().split()
    my_string = list(my_string)
    my_dict = {}

    for i in my_string:
        count = 1
        if i in my_dict:
            count +=  1

        else:
            count = 1

        my_dict[i] = count

    return my_dict

print("\n Your dict is:")
print(word_count("She sells sea shells on the sea shore"))

2 Answers

Mikael Enarsson
Mikael Enarsson
7,056 Points
Mikael Enarsson
Mikael Enarsson
7,056 Points 
def word_count(string):

    my_string = string.lower().split()
    my_string = list(my_string)
    my_dict = {}

    for i in my_string:
        count = 1    #This sets the initial value of count to 1 for every item in your list
        if i in my_dict:
            count +=  1     #If item in my_dict, then count += 1, or, in other words 2, following the first point

        else:
            count = 1     #If it isn't, count = 1, still

        my_dict[i] = count    #Add 1 or 2 to the key's value (not sure if that's the right term, but you get it), but not, for example, 3

    return my_dict

print("\n Your dict is:")
print(word_count("She sells sea shells on the sea shore"))

This should outline the problem, but if it feels unhelpful, comment and I'll try to give some more details.

By the way, you can test for this particular problem if you want, just add a few more "sea"s or something ^^ My result for "She sells sea shells on the sea shore sea sea" was:

Your dict is:
{'the': 1, 'she': 1, 'shells': 1, 'on': 1, 'sea': 2, 'shore': 1, 'sells': 1}

Shrinivas Ganesan
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points
Shrinivas Ganesan
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points

Thank you, this was very helpful. I corrected the code and got it right this time.

Mikael Enarsson
Mikael Enarsson
7,056 Points
Mikael Enarsson
Mikael Enarsson
7,056 Points

No problem ^^ If you think it deserves it, I would be very grateful if you could mark the answer as "Best answer" (for the points ~.^)

Kenneth Love
STAFF
Kenneth Love
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Kenneth Love
Kenneth Love
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Since .split() always gives back a list, I'm not sure why you're both making it a list again on the next line.

What if a word appears more than twice in the string? The highest number your code can set it to is 2. You should get the value (the count) for the word that's already in the dictionary, increment that by 1, and then set it again to the new value.

Shrinivas Ganesan
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points
Shrinivas Ganesan
Shrinivas Ganesan
Courses Plus Student 5,923 Points

Yeah, I didn't realise .split() returned a list. Thanks for the pointer!