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

jamie threadgold
jamie threadgold
925 Points
Posted by jamie threadgold
jamie threadgold
925 Points

Not sure what I've done here??

Can anyone help? My brain hurts after trying to figure this one out...

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(a_str):
    string_dict = {}
    for word in a_str.lower().split():
        string_dict[word] = a_str.count(word) 
        return string_dict

1 Answer

Jon Mirow
Jon Mirow
9,864 Points

Hi there!

Ah, so close! The first little issue is your return statement is inside your for loop, so it only runs through the first word and then exits the function. .. the next is how str.count works - it looks for substrings, so:

>>>"hi hi, hi".count("hi)
3
>>>"hi hi, hi".count("i")
3

See the problem? If the value passed to count() is a substring of a word, you get false positives. You could try adding whitespace either side, but that starts to get messy. Probably better to check if the word you've got this loop is already in the dictionary, and add it if not ;) Not as elegent, but overcomes the substring problem

Hope it helps :)