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

I would use .apply with pd.Series to accomplish this:

# 1. Expand columns and count them
df_temp = df["colors"].apply(pd.Series.value_counts)

    blue    brown   green   purple  red
0   1.0 1.0 1.0 NaN NaN
1   NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN
2   1.0 NaN 1.0 NaN 1.0
3   NaN NaN NaN 1.0 NaN
4   NaN 1.0 NaN NaN NaN

# 2. Get the value counts from this:
df_temp.sum()

blue      2.0
brown     2.0
green     2.0
purple    1.0
red       1.0

# Alternatively, convert to a dict
df_temp.sum().to_dict()
# {'blue': 2.0, 'brown': 2.0, 'green': 2.0, 'purple': 1.0, 'red': 1.0}