Sentry Answers>Python>

Count occurrences of item in Python list

Count occurrences of item in Python list

David Y.

The ProblemJump To Solution

How do I count the occurrences of an item in a Python list?

The Solution

We can use the Python list.count method, as below:

Click to Copy
products = ["Apple", "Orange", "Banana", "Pear", "Apple", "Banana"] banana_count = products.count("Banana") # => 2

If we need to count the occurrences of every unique item in the list, it is more performant to use the Counter collection from the built-in Python collections library than to use the count method in a loop.

Click to Copy
from collections import Counter products = ["Apple", "Orange", "Banana", "Pear", "Apple", "Banana"] element_counts = Counter(products)

This will produce a Counter object, which is a subclass of dict. For the code above, element_counts will look like this:

Click to Copy
Counter({"Apple": 2, "Orange": 1, "Banana": 2, "Pear": 1})
  • Sentry BlogPython Performance Testing: A Comprehensive Guide
  • Sentry BlogLogging in Python: A Developer’s Guide
  • Syntax.fm logo
    Listen to the Syntax Podcast

    Tasty Treats for Web Developers brought to you by Sentry. Web development tips and tricks hosted by Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski

    Listen to Syntax

Loved by over 4 million developers and more than 90,000 organizations worldwide, Sentry provides code-level observability to many of the world’s best-known companies like Disney, Peloton, Cloudflare, Eventbrite, Slack, Supercell, and Rockstar Games. Each month we process billions of exceptions from the most popular products on the internet.

© 2024 • Sentry is a registered Trademark
of Functional Software, Inc.