Need help with Python Collection Dictionaries(Word_count Challenge)

Hello,

Let me take a different approach for you here. I hope this helps.

I need a dictionary created from a string. I need the key to be taken from the list, and the value to be the number of times that key shows up in the list. So let's do this!!!

So first thing is first. I need to put the string into a list. (Which you did right already). So I head to the python interpreter.

>>> aString = "I am who I am"
>>> lString = aString.split()
>>> lString
['I', 'am', 'who', 'I', 'am']

Ok Awesome!! Now I need to move through the list. I can use a for loop or a while. But a while loop happens while something else is occuring. I just need to do this one thing. return a single response. So I will go with a for loop that behind the scenes creates and iterator object blah blah. We wont go that far into it here.

for item in lString:

Ok, so this will move through my list. Putting each character from the list in the item variable. So how do I get the number of times a word shows up in a list? To the interpreter

Let's do a dir() on lists to find out it's available methods. OHH look count. Hmm what does that do? Let's do a help on list.count().

>>> dir(list)
['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__delitem__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__iadd__', '__imul__', '__init__', '__iter__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__reversed__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', 'append', 'clear', 'copy', 'count', 'extend', 'index', 'insert', 'pop', 'remove', 'reverse', 'sort']

>>> help(list.count)
Help on method_descriptor:

count(...)
    L.count(value) -> integer -- return number of occurrences of value

>>>

Well that is fun. It returns a number of occurrences of a value. Sweet, that is exactly what I need.

for item in lString:
    count = lString.count(item)

That looks about right. Now count will hold the number of times item was found. So all that is left to do is put item, and the number of times item occurs(count). Into a dictionary. hmmm How do I do that? Well I need a dictionary that is empty first. Then I need to put values in it. Like so.

I will type the entire answer HERE.

def word_count(dict_string):
  my_dict = {}                          ==== 1
  listSplit = dict_string.split()    ===2
  for item in listSplit:                      =3
    count = listSplit.count(item)    =4
    my_dict[item] = count            =5

  return my_dict

1. Create an empty dict to hold my key/value pairs.
2. I split my string into a list. Giving me access to list methods and even though a string is a sequence and an iterable. I want to work with a string. So I split it with no args.
3. I then go into a loop placing list[0] or first index in list into the item value.
4. I then run a count on the list to determine how many times that item is in the list and store it as count.
5. Then I put item and count into the dictionary.

The whole process occurs again until end of list.

please let me know if this helps or confuses you more. If there is anything else I can clarify, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks!

Let me know if this helps you or confuses you? If you have any concerns or questions on what I am saying. Please do let me know! thanks!