How do I count the values from a pandas column which is a list of strings?

Question

I have a dataframe column which is a list of strings:

df[\'colors\']

0              [\'blue\',\'green\',\'brown\']
1              []
2              [\'green\         


        

Answer 1

A quick and dirty solution would be something like this I imagine.

You'd still have to add a condition to get the empty list, though.

colors = df.colors.tolist()
d = {}
for l in colors:
    for c in l:
        if c not in d.keys():
            d.update({c: 1})
        else:
            current_val = d.get(c)
            d.update({c: current_val+1})

this produces a dictionary looking like this:

{'blue': 2, 'green': 2, 'brown': 2, 'red': 1, 'purple': 1}