Python: Sorting a Python list to show which string is most common to least common and the number of-CodePudding

I have a winners list which will receive different entries each time the rest of my code is ran:

eg the list could look like:

winners = ['Tortoise','Tortoise','Hare']

I am able to find the most common entry by using:

mostWins = [word for word, word_count in Counter(winners).most_common(Animalnum)]

which would ouput:

['Tortoise']

My problem is displaying the entire list from most common to least common and the how many times each string is found in the list.

CodePudding user response：

Just iterate over that .most_common:

>>> winners = ['Tortoise','Tortoise','Hare','Tortoise','Hare','Bob']
>>> import collections
>>> for name, wins in collections.Counter(winners).most_common():
...   print(name, wins)
...
Tortoise 3
Hare 2
Bob 1
>>>

CodePudding user response：

Counter is just a dictionary internally.

from collections import Counter
winners = ['Tortoise','Tortoise','Hare','Tortoise','Hare','Bob', 'Bob', 'John']
counts = Counter(winners)
print(counts)
# Counter({'Tortoise': 3, 'Hare': 2, 'Bob': 2, 'John': 1})
print(counts['Hare'])
# 2

Furthermore, the .most_common(n) method is just a .items() call on it that limits the output to n length. So you should only use it, if you'd like to show the top three, e.g.:

counts.most_common(3)
# [('Tortoise', 3), ('Hare', 2), ('Bob', 2)]