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

(require 'cl)
(defun count-uniq (list)
  (let ((k 1) (list (sort (mapcar #'car list) #'string<)))
    (loop for (i . j) on list
          when (string= i (car j)) do (incf k)
          else collect (cons i k) and do (setf k 1))))