Variable not reassigned when changed in for loop

Question

The goal of this code is to count the word that appears the most within the given list. I planned to do this by looping through the dictionary. If a word appeared a greater number of times than the value stored in the variable rep_num, it was reassigned. Currently, the variable rep_num remains 0 and is not reassigned to the number of times a word appears in the list. I believe this has something to do with trying to reassign it within a for loop, but I am not sure how to fix the issue.

def rep_words(novel_list):
    rep_num=0
    for i in range(len(novel_list)):
        if novel_list.count(i)>rep_num:
            rep_num=novel_list.count(i)
    return rep_num
novel_list =['this','is','the','story','in','which','the','hero','was','guilty']

In the given code, 2 should be returned, but 0 is returned instead.

you're counting an integer (i) which doesn't appear in your list at all. — David Zemens
– David Zemens, Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 16:09

static const · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 16:09:53Z

1

In you for loop you are iterating over the numbers and not list elements themselves,

def rep_words(novel_list):
    rep_num=0
    for i in novel_list:
        if novel_list.count(i)>rep_num:
            rep_num=novel_list.count(i)
    return rep_num

answered Jun 28, 2019 at 16:09

static const

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Comments

David Zemens · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 16:28:15Z

1

You're iterating over a numeric range, and counting the integer i, none of which values exist in the list at all. Try this instead, which returns the maximum frequency, and optionally a list of words which occur that many times.

novel_list =['this','is','the','story','in','which','the','hero','was','guilty']

def rep_words(novel_list, include_words=False):
    counts = {word:novel_list.count(word) for word in set(novel_list)}
    rep = max(counts.values())
    word = [k for k,v in counts.items() if v == rep]
    return (rep, word) if include_words else rep

>>> rep_words(novel_list)
2
>>> rep_words(novel_list, True)
(2, ['the'])
>>> rep_words('this list of words has many words in this list of words and in this list of words is this'.split(' '), True)
(4, ['words', 'this'])

edited Jun 28, 2019 at 16:28

answered Jun 28, 2019 at 16:17

David Zemens

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Comments

Taohidul Islam · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 16:09:40Z

0

You've an error in your function (you're counting the index, not the value), write like this:

def rep_words(novel_list):
    rep_num=0
    for i in novel_list:
        if novel_list.count(i)>rep_num:  #you want to count the value, not the index
            rep_num=novel_list.count(i)
    return rep_num

Or you may try this too:

def rep_words(novel_list):
    rep_num=0
    for i in range(len(novel_list)):
        if novel_list.count(novel_list[i])>rep_num:
            rep_num=novel_list.count(novel_list[i])
    return rep_num

answered Jun 28, 2019 at 16:09

Taohidul Islam

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