Counter in Collections module Python

Question

I've come across a really weird problem. I'm trying to use Counter function in collections module. However, I keep getting the same error message

AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'Counter'

I have tried using it before and it worked fine, but now for some reason when I import "collections" module it has a very limited number of attributes.

I have tried:

import collections   # when calling Counter I would then use collections.Counter()
import collections as collect # collect.Counter()

For both of those I keep getting Attribute Error.

I have also tried

from collections import Counter

And in this case I got:

ImportError: cannot import name Counter

These are all tested both in ipython interface and through a script (not importing anything else, just the collections).

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The Counter class was added to the module in Python 2.7. You are most likely using Python 2.6 or older. From the collections.Counter() documentation:

New in version 2.7.

On python 2.5 or 2.6, use this backport instead.

Answer 2

Came across the same issue while installing pandas.

Cause: Counter is only supported in python2.7 and higher and is not available in earlier versions - Counter class got added into collections package in Python 2.7.

---

Solution 1: As stated by Martin Pieters - use the backport.

Add counter.py at /lib64/python2.6/ - this is where the collections.py is ./lib64/python2.6/collections.py Patch collections.py with:

from counter import Counter

Solution 2: use the backport_collections package. Next patch (the import statement) the package you're getting exception at i.e. pandas in my case:

from backport_collections import Counter

Answer 3

You're probably using an old version of Python, the Counter class, as stated in the documentation was added in version 2.7.