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

Posted by Harihar Kandula
Harihar Kandula
6,486 Points

wordcount.py - could someone help me find what went wrong on this code ?

def word_count(arg1): string_low = arg1.lower() string = string_low.split(" ") result = {} for item in string: count = string.count(item) result[item]=count return result

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(arg1):
    string_low = arg1.lower()
    string = string_low.split(" ")
    result = {}
    for item in string:
        count = string.count(item)
        result[item]=count
    return result

2 Answers

Ryan S
Ryan S
27,276 Points
Ryan S
Ryan S
27,276 Points

Hi Harihar,

Your code is pretty much correct, however it is not effectively handling all forms of whitespace. You are only splitting on single spaces. But what about double spaces, or tabs, or newlines?

Here is a hint: if you don't pass any arguments to .split() then it will split on all whitespace.

Marcus Sassi
Marcus Sassi
4,394 Points
Marcus Sassi
Marcus Sassi
4,394 Points

Here is my code which works, please study it and compare it with yours. I think you have done a great job. I found dictionaries to be quite challenging and had to review a couple times.

myword ="I do not like it Sam I Am"

def word_count(sentence):
  my_dict = {}
  sentence = sentence.lower().split()
  for sen in sentence:
    if sen in my_dict:
      count = my_dict[sen] + 1
      my_dict[sen] = count
    else:
      my_dict[sen] = 1
  return my_dict