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

Bogdan Lalu
Bogdan Lalu
6,419 Points
Posted by Bogdan Lalu
Bogdan Lalu
6,419 Points

Unable to complete the challenge at the end of the Python dictionaries course

Hi there, Can someone help me please spot what's missing in my code? I've tested it locally and to me it seems to work. The challenge asks to create a function that takes a string as an argument. It should return a dictionary with each word as key and the wordcount as a value. The challenge also suggests to lowercase the string for simplicity. When it fails it suggests to make sure I'm not splitting only based on spaces so I've used re. Here's my code below:

import re
def word_count(mystring):
    result = {}
    lower_mystring = mystring.lower()
    initial_word_list = re.findall(r'\w+', lower_mystring)
    unique_word_list = list(set(initial_word_list))
    for word in unique_word_list:
        result[word] = initial_word_list.count(word)
    return result

Many thanks

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 re
def word_count(mystring):
    result = {}
    lower_mystring = mystring.lower()
    initial_word_list = re.findall(r'\w+', lower_mystring)
    unique_word_list = list(set(initial_word_list))
    for word in unique_word_list:
        result[word] = initial_word_list.count(word)
    return result
Dave Laffan
Dave Laffan
4,604 Points
Dave Laffan
Dave Laffan
4,604 Points

If it helps, I used

def word_count(string):
    new_dict = {}
    new_list = string.lower().split()

    for x in new_list:
        new_dict.update({x: new_list.count(x)})

    return(new_dict)

Your code looks to be using words and commands I'm not yet familiar with so I'd be no help there sorry, but hopefully comparing my code might be of use.

1 Answer

Bogdan Lalu
Bogdan Lalu
6,419 Points
Bogdan Lalu
Bogdan Lalu
6,419 Points

Thanks Dave for your code, it does work. I was so frustrated that mine didn't work that I did not see the big picture. My issue was somewhat different.

I solved mine after Kenneth suggested in a different post that I've misinterpreted the requirements of the challenge. This topic is closed now.

This is not about finding words in a sentence or paragraph but about splitting a string on spaces. Therefore a 'word' can contain punctuation. I wrongly assumed that it shouldn't, for the purpose of this challenge. So i've taken out the regex part and I just altered my code to what you see below. Not sure exactly why this code did not work in the first place though. I must have had a typo or something. The fact that it did not work made me overthink it and try to take out punctuation from words. Anyway the code below worked for me.

def word_count(mystring):
    result = {}
    lower_mystring = mystring.lower()
    initial_word_list = lower_mystring.split()
    unique_word_list = list(set(initial_word_list))
    for word in unique_word_list:
        result[word] = initial_word_list.count(word)
    return result