counting occurrences

[Grant Griffin]

Quinn Dunkan wrote:
> 
> On 3 Aug 2001 13:47:34 -0700, Grant Griffin <not.this at seebelow.org> wrote:
> >This then usually leads to a need to "sort keys by value"--something like this:
> >
> >   itemlist = [(value, key) for (key, value) in counter.items()]
> >   itemlist.sort()
> >   itemlist.reverse()
> ...
> >For me, this sort of thing comes up so often that it qualifies as an "idiom".
> 
> So put it in a function.

I not sure that a function helps much unless I also make a module for
the function to permanently live in--and this is one of those things
that seems too simple to make into a module, yet too complicated to type
repeatedly.  (Hard to please, ain't I?<wink>)

> >...But, among
> >other things, my friend (who has been using Python for a *long* time) said
> >that he has never wanted such a thing, because he doesn't see counting
> >occurrences "as a dictionary operation".
> >
> >So how do you think he does it?
> 
> Here's how I would probably do it:
> 
> def occurrences(pred, seq):
>     # (t -> Boolean) -> [t] -> [(Int, t)]
>     d = {}
>     for elt in seq:
>         if pred(elt):
>             d[elt] = d.get(elt, 0) + 1
>     a = [ (v, k) for (k, v) in d.items() ]
>     a.sort()
>     a.reverse()
>     return a

Aside from being more neatly packaged, that's really about the same as
mine.  Specifically, it's still "a dictionary operation".

I guess I can't think of any easier way to do this in Python than as to
use dictionaries--in one form or another.

thanks-anyway-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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