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

Yulin Wang
Yulin Wang
36,990 Points
Posted by Yulin Wang
Yulin Wang
36,990 Points

I've split the whitespace and lowercase the string for key, but it doesn't work

What's the problem with my code

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(inputString):
    my_dict = {}
    words = inputString.split(' ')
    for word in words:
        if len(word) < 1:
            continue
        word = word.lower()
        if word in my_dict:
            my_dict[word] += 1
        else:
            my_dict[word] = 1
    return my_dict

1 Answer

james south
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james south
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 33,271 Points
james south
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
james south
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 33,271 Points

you are splitting on the space character only, not all whitespace. there are other whitespace characters such as tab and newline. to split on all whitespace use split().