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

Posted by Clifford Gagliardo
Clifford Gagliardo
Courses Plus Student 15,069 Points

I don't understand this problem very well or what's wrong with this code. I need a lot of help I'm afraid.

I just don't understand what's going on here. I need 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.
import collections 
def word_count(string): 
    string_list=string.lower().split(" ")
    headache={}
    for word in string_list: 
        if word in string_list: 
            headache[word]+=1
        else: 
            headache[word]=1
    return headache

3 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,248 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,248 Points

You're really close! Inside your loop, instead of testing if word is in string_list (you know it is, since the loop got it from there), you probably meant to test if it is in the dictionary headache.

And to split on any white space, leave out the argument to split.

Clifford Gagliardo
PLUS
Clifford Gagliardo
Courses Plus Student 15,069 Points
Clifford Gagliardo
Clifford Gagliardo
Courses Plus Student 15,069 Points

Oh I see! I think I added the "" inside of the .split() after reading through a bunch of possible solutions and didn't quite understand that it needed to be blank. Thank you very much for your help. I'm still getting the hang of how to think about dictionaries.

Tonye Jack
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Tonye Jack
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 12,469 Points
Tonye Jack
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Tonye Jack
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 12,469 Points 
def word_count(arg):
    words = arg.lower().split()
    keys = set(words)
    ret = dict(zip(keys, [0 for  _ in range(len(keys))]))
    for key in words:
        if ret.get(key) is not None:
            ret[key] += 1
    return ret