Python: counter in a function with multiple args

Question

Working on a function for input of an arbitrary number of text files as args. Function is to count lines, words and chars for each of the files, as well as a total count:

lines = words = chars = 0

def cfunc(folder, *arg):
    global lines, words, chars

    for x in arg:
        with open("{}{}".format(folder, x), "r") as inp:
            for line in inp:
                lines += 1
                words += len(line.split(" "))
                chars += len(line)
        print(x, lines, words, chars)

cfunc("C:/", "text1.txt", "text2.txt", "text3.txt")

The counter is correct for the first file. For the third the counter essentially shows the total number for lines/words/chars across all 3 files. As i understand, this happens because inp reads all 3 files together and the counter is the same across all files. How could i separate the counters to print statistics for each file individually?

Answer 1

First, you need to reset your statistics for each file:

for x in arg:
    lines = words = chars = 0
    with open("{}{}".format(folder, x), "r") as inp:
        ...

Second, to keep a total count you need to use separate variables since you're now resetting the variables for each iteration:

total_lines = total_words = total_characters = 0

def cfunc(folder, *arg):
    global total_lines, total_words, total_chars

    for x in arg:
        ...
        print(x, lines, words, chars)
        total_lines += lines
        total_words += words
        total_chars += chars

Of course you can name your global variables lines , words , and chars if you want, you then just have to use different names for the variables you use inside the loop.