want to count the number of times a letter appears in a string, having issues here. any help
def countLetters(string, character):
count = 0
for character in string:
if character == character:
count = count + 1
print count
The others have covered the errors of your function. Here's an alternative way of doing what you want. Python's built-in string method count() returns the number of occurrences of a string.
x = "Don't reinvent the wheel."
x.count("e")
Gives:
5
x = reduce(operator.add, (char == 'e' for char in "Do reinvent the wheel"))?
sum(char == 'e' for char in "Reinvent the wheel another way") == 6. Much nicer than reduce and operator.add.if character == character:
character will always equal character because they're the same variable. Just change the names of those variables. Maybe search_character?
I also wouldn't use string as a variable name since it's the name of a built-in module.
You have the same variable name for those characters (which means they'll always be equal). Try:
def countLetters(string, character):
count = 0
for char in string:
if char == character:
count = count + 1
print count
Of course this is the same as str.count()
character == characteris going to be very true all the time.string) or builtins as variable names.float('nan') == float('nan') == False__eq__to do something else. :)