How do I count unique words using counter library in python?

Question

im new to python and trying various libraries

from collections import Counter
print(Counter('like baby baby baby ohhh baby baby like nooo'))

When i print this the output I receive is:

Counter({'b': 10, ' ': 8, 'a': 5, 'y': 5, 'o': 4, 'h': 3, 'l': 2, 'i': 2, 'k': 2, 'e': 2, 'n': 1})

But I want to find the count of unique words:

#output example
({'like': 2, 'baby': 5, 'ohhh': 1, 'nooo': 1}, ('baby', 5))

How can I do this, additionally can I do this without the counter library using loops?

Answer 1

The python Counter class takes an Iterable object as parameter. As you are giving it a String object:

Counter('like baby baby baby ohhh baby baby like nooo')

it will iterate over each character of the string and generate a count for each of the different letters. Thats why you are receiving

Counter({'b': 10, ' ': 8, 'a': 5, 'y': 5, 'o': 4, 'h': 3, 'l': 2, 'i': 2, 'k': 2, 'e': 2, 'n': 1})

back from the class. One alternative would be to pass a list to Counter. This way the Counter class will iterate each of the list elements and create the count you expect.

Counter(['like', 'baby', 'baby', 'baby', 'ohhh', 'baby', 'baby', 'like', 'nooo'])

That could also be simply achived by splitting the string into words using the split method:

Counter('like baby baby baby ohhh baby baby like nooo'.split())

Output

Counter({'baby': 5, 'like': 2, 'ohhh': 1, 'nooo': 1})