Error when calling Counter function on a list

Question

I am writing a program to count the 20 most occurring words in a txt file. The program is working fine when I have it strip and count one file but when I input two files to be stripped and counted I get an error saying "'Counter' object is not callable". I am confused because again this is working fine with one document. Below is my code and the error is coming from within the while loop. Thanks!

 from collections import Counter

 numOfData = int(input("How many documents would you liek to scan? "))

 i = 0
 displayedI = str(i)

docList = []
finalData = []

##Address of document would take 'test.txt' for example
while i < numOfData:
    newAddress = input("Address of document " + displayedI + ": ")
    docList.append(newAddress)

    i += 1

 print(docList)
 indexList = 0


 for x in docList:
     file = open(docList[indexList], 'r')
     data_set = file.read().strip()
     file.close()
     split_set = data_set.split()
 ##This is where the error is occurring
     Counter = Counter(split_set)
     most_occuring = Counter.most_common(20)
     finalData.append(most_occuring)
     indexList += 1


print(finalData)

Rolando cq · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-07 20:54:04Z

3

I'm not sure why is it working on 1 element, however, you could try to change the name of the variable, because Counter is the object callable name.

Also adding some "better" practice on your index.

for idx, x in enumerate(docList):
    file = open(docList[idx], 'r')
    data_set = file.read().strip()
    file.close()
    split_set = data_set.split()
    CounterVariable = Counter(split_set)
    most_occuring = CounterVariable.most_common(20)
    finalData.append(most_occuring)

answered Feb 7, 2019 at 20:54

Rolando cq

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1 Comment

Mitchell Markoff Over a year ago

Thanks that go it working perfecting with multiple documents. Appreciate it.

blhsing · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-07 21:40:44Z

2

The reason why it works for one document is because the Counter variable, originally referencing the collections.Counter class, is not used as a constructor after it is assigned with a Counter instance in the loop's first iteration. It's only when the loop is in the second iteration that the Counter variable, now holding a Counter instance, is used as a Counter constructor by calling it, thereby producing the error.

answered Feb 7, 2019 at 21:40

blhsing

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1 Comment

Mitchell Markoff Over a year ago

Thanks for the clarification!

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