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

Robust Tran
Robust Tran
2,802 Points
Posted by Robust Tran
Robust Tran
2,802 Points

Word count function problem

I have checked my code in the terminal, and it worked as expected {'do': 1, 'not': 1, 'like': 1, 'sam': 1, 'i': 2, 'am': 1, 'it': 1} on word_count("I do not like it Sam I Am"). But I'm still getting the "Bummer: didn't get the .... etc".

Can someone help me out? Point out where my code is wrong? Thank you

wordcount.py 
def word_count(sentence):
    result = {}
    for word in sentence.split(' '):
        word = word.lower()
        if word not in result:
            result[word] = 1
        else:
            result[word] += 1
    return dict(result)

1 Answer

Mike Wagner
Mike Wagner
23,559 Points

I'm not entirely sure what the root of the issue is, but to solve it you can remove the ' ' from your split() operation. Something about the existence there is confusing the challenge environment. My guess is that it's looking for a double whitespace character, perhaps. Either way, since the split() operation actually accounts for whitespace automatically, there's no need to explicitly define it. Also, even though you'll pass the challenge with it in, there's no need to return dict(result) because you've already defined result as a dictionary when you created it.

Robust Tran
Robust Tran
2,802 Points
Robust Tran
Robust Tran
2,802 Points

Wow, remove the ' ' from your split() operation <<< Worked. How weird it is!? Thank you :)

Mike Wagner
Mike Wagner
23,559 Points

Robust Tran - of course. Glad I could help. Yeah, I honestly still haven't figured out why that one little change throws an unexpected output. I've been reading over documentation since I answered your question and it seems like it should work either way, which is probably why it worked just fine for you in the terminal. The Treehouse challenges are sometimes quite picky about how they are solved, though, so it could have just checked to make sure you split in a certain way and didn't like that you passed the argument of the whitespace character.