Retrieving Most Frequent Elements in an Iterable in Python
The Counter class of builtin module collections creates a dictionary of all elements of a given iterable object, along with corresponding number of occurrences. It provides a few useful methods, one of which is most_common(). This method takes an integer input, say n, and provides a list of tuples of n most common elements with their corresponding number of occurrences.
import collections
words = [
'!', '@', '#', '$', '%',
'@', '#', '$', '%',
'#', '$', '%',
'$', '%',
'%',
]
characterCounts = collections.Counter(words)
threeMostFrequentCharacters = characterCounts.most_common(3)
print(threeMostFrequentCharacters) # [('%', 5), ('$', 4), ('#', 3)]
See also:
- Python 101
- Object Oriented Python
- Design Patterns in Python
- 50+ Handy Standard Library Modules
- 60+ Handy Third Library Modules
- 50+ Tips & Tricks for Python Developers
- 50+ Know-How(s) Every Pythonista Must Know