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Well here is some code I wrote recently to build a histogram over a weighted graph, before becoming aware that Counter existed (score is a float here): from collections import defaultdict total_score_by_depth = defaultdict(float) total_items_by_depth = defaultdict(int) num_nodes_by_score = defaultdict(int) num_nodes_by_log_score = defaultdict(int) num_edges_by_score = defaultdict(int) for state in iter_graph_components(): try: # There is probably some overlap here ak = state['ak'] _, c = ak.score_paths(max_depth=15) for edge in state['graph'].edges: num_edges_by_score[np.ceil(20.0 * edge.score) / 20.0] += 1 for node in c.nodes: total_score_by_depth[node.depth] += node.score total_items_by_depth[node.depth] += 1 num_nodes_by_score[np.ceil(20.0 * node.score) / 20.0] += 1 num_nodes_by_log_score[np.ceil(-np.log10(node.score))] += 1 num_nodes_by_score[0.0] += len(state['graph'].nodes) - len(c.nodes) num_nodes_by_log_score[100.0] += len(state['graph'].nodes) - len(c.nodes) except MemoryError: print("Skipped massive.") Without going too much into what this does, note that I could replace the other defaultdicts with Counters, but I can't do the same thing with a total_score_by_depth, at least not without violating the API. I would suggest that with a name like Counter, treating a class like a Counter should be the more common use case. If it's meant to be a multiset, we should call it a Multiset. Here is an example from Stack Overflow of someone else also wanting a float counter, and the only suggestion being to use defaultdict: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10900207/any-way-to-tackle-float-counter... On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 3:08 AM Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
On 18 December 2017 at 23:51, Joel Croteau <jcroteau@gmail.com> wrote:
It would be useful in many scenarios for values in collections.Counter to be allowed to be floating point.
Do you have any evidence of this? Code examples that would be significantly improved by such a change? I can't think of any myself.
I might consider writing
totals - defaultdict(float) for ...: totals[something] = calculation(something)
but using a counter is neither noticeably easier, nor clearer...
One way of demonstrating such a need would be if your proposed behaviour were available on PyPI and getting used a lot - I'm not aware of any such module if it is.
Paul