Python Lists - Finding Number of Times a String Occurs

Question

How would I find how many times each string appears in my list?

Say I have the word:

\"General Store\"

that is in my list like 20 t

Answer 1

You can use a dictionary, you might want to consider just using a dictionary from the beginning instead of a list but here is a simple setup.

#list
mylist = ['General Store','Mall','Ice Cream Van','General Store']

#takes values from list and create a dictionary with the list value as a key and
#the number of times it is repeated as their values
def votes(mylist):
d = dict()
for value in mylist:
    if value not in d:
        d[value] = 1
    else:
        d[value] +=1

return d

#prints the keys and their vaules
def print_votes(dic):
    for c in dic:
        print c +' - voted', dic[c], 'times'

#function call
print_votes(votes(mylist))

It outputs:

Mall - voted 1 times
Ice Cream Van - voted 1 times
General Store - voted 2 times