Learn / Python / Dictionaries: counting words
Python, lesson 6 of 6
Dictionaries: counting words
A dictionary stores pairs: a key and its value. It is perfect for counting:
stock = {"bolt": 12, "nut": 40}
stock["washer"] = 5 # add a key
stock["bolt"] = stock["bolt"] + 1
print(stock["bolt"]) # 13
print("nut" in stock) # True
Text can be split into words with .split() and made lowercase with .lower().
Your turn
Write word_counts(text) that returns a dictionary of how many times each word appears. Treat capitals as the same word ("Bolt" and "bolt" count together).
Press Run to see what your code prints.
Hint: Loop over text.lower().split(); use counts.get(w, 0) + 1 to add one.