elegant way to count items

Question

I have a list shaped like this:

  \'((\"Alpha\" .  1538)
    (\"Beta\"  .  8036)
    (\"Gamma\" .  8990)
    (\"Beta\"  .  10052)
    (\"Alpha\" .  12837)
           


        

Answer 1

(defun freqs (list &optional test key)
  (let ((h (make-hash-table :test test)))
    (dolist (x list)
      (let ((key (if key (funcall key x) x)))
        (puthash key (1+ (gethash key h 0)) h)))
    (let ((r nil))
      (maphash #'(lambda (k v) (push (cons k v) r)) h)
      (sort r #'(lambda (x y) (< (cdr x) (cdr y)))))))

(freqs '(("Alpha" .  1538)
         ("Beta"  .  8036)
         ("Gamma" .  8990)
         ("Beta"  .  10052)
         ("Alpha" .  12837)
         ("Beta"  .  13634)
         ("Beta"  .  14977)
         ("Beta"  .  15719)
         ("Alpha" .  17075)
         ("Rho"   .  18949)
         ("Gamma" .  21118)
         ("Gamma" .  26923)
         ("Alpha" .  31609))
       #'equal #'car)