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Python Python Collections (Retired) Dictionaries Word Count

anhedonicblonde
anhedonicblonde
3,133 Points

Create a function named word_count...

I'm doing a review of my Python studies and finding the parts where I didn't get things the first time around. I'm having trouble seeing what is wrong with my code for the word_count challenge - can someone tell me where I have gone wrong? Thanks so much!

word_count.py
# E.g. word_count("I am that I am") gets back a dictionary like:
# {'i': 2, 'am': 2, 'that': 1}
# Lowercase the string to make it easier.
# Using .split() on the sentence will give you a list of words.
# In a for loop of that list, you'll have a word that you can
# check for inclusion in the dict (with "if word in dict"-style syntax).
# Or add it to the dict with something like word_dict[word] = 1.
def word_count(string):
  my_string = string.lower()
  word_list = my_string.split()
  word_dict = {}
  count = 0

  for word in word_list:
    if word in word_dict:
      count +=1
    else:
      word_dict[word] = 1
  return count

3 Answers

Anish Walawalkar
Anish Walawalkar
8,534 Points

Hey, you're doing great, you just made a few small mistakes:

  1. the question does not ask you to lowercase the string, so you do not need to do it
  2. you should check using word in word_dict.keys() thought just checking word in word_dict is not wrong
  3. The question asks you to return a dictionary mapping words to their count not an overall count

here is the code:

def word_count(string):
  word_list = string.split()
  word_dict = {}
  for word in word_list:
    if word in word_dict.keys():
      word_dict[word] +=1
    else:
      word_dict[word] = 1
  return word_dict

Hope this helps

anhedonicblonde
anhedonicblonde
3,133 Points

Oh, cool! Thank you so much!! I really appreciate it- I understand now, thank you :)

Andrey Chernykh
PLUS
Andrey Chernykh
Courses Plus Student 2,552 Points

Easier way would be count()

The method count() returns count of how many times obj occurs in list.

def word_count(string):
  my_string = string.lower()
  word_list = my_string.split()
  word_dict = {}

  for word in word_list:
    word_dict[word]=word_list.count(word)
  return word_dict
Andrey Chernykh
PLUS
Andrey Chernykh
Courses Plus Student 2,552 Points

Just a small addition , there is no need of using .keys() in this case , try to go easy and with less code