How to add or increment single item of the Python Counter class

Question

A set uses .update to add multiple items, and .add to add a single one.

Why doesn\'t collections.Counter work the same way?

Answer 1

Well, you don't really need to use methods of Counter in order to count, do you? There's a += operator for that, which also works in conjunction with Counter.

c = Counter()
for item in something:
    if item.has_some_property:
        c[item.property] += 1
    elif item.has_some_other_property:
        c[item.other_property] += 1
    elif item.has_some.third_property:
        c[item.third_property] += 1