Python tuple for Counter

Question

str_tuple = "abcd",
a = Counter()  
a.update(str_tuple)

but a[('abcd',)] == 0 because the Counter counted the 'abcd' string, not the tuple. I need to count the tuple.

Answer 1

Counter.update() takes a sequence of things to count. If you need to count a tuple, put that value into a sequence before passing it to the Counter.update() method:

a.update([str_tuple])

or use:

a[str_tuple] += 1

to increment the count for that one tuple by one.

Demo:

>>> from collections import Counter
>>> str_tuple = "abcd",
>>> a = Counter()  
>>> a.update([str_tuple])
>>> a
Counter({('abcd',): 1})
>>> a = Counter()  
>>> a[str_tuple] += 1
>>> a
Counter({('abcd',): 1})