What is the preferred way to count the number of ocurrences of a certain character in a string?

Question

How do I do this without string.count(), because it is listed as deprecated in Python v2.7.3 documentation?

I am unable to find what I should use instead.

EDIT: The question originally stated that str.count() was deprecated but that is incorrect and misleading. See https://mcmap.net/q/1861195/-what-is-the-preferred-way-to-count-the-number-of-ocurrences-of-a-certain-character-in-a-string for explanation

Dasilva

Sorry I did a mistake with the question, editing now. – Dasilva

It is? - even in 3.2 I see no deprecated notes. – Overweigh

Did you maybe mean string.count, which is deprecated (alongside most of the rest of the string module)? – Kaph

@DanielRoseman That might be it. docs.python.org/library/string.html lists it under "deprecated string functions". But if it were the whole module, why aren't they all deprecated? – Dasilva

@Dasilva str and string are different. The former is the type of strings in python, the latter a module that handles string-related things. – Overweigh

@Lattyware Should the question be edited to "Why is string.count deprecated / how to replace" or left as it is? – Dasilva

@Dasilva I think as it stands it's fine, this way at least if someone searches for this, it might come up so they get the explanation. – Overweigh

Does this answer your question? Count the number occurrences of a character in a string – Poise

@GinoMempin It does answer the headline even though https://mcmap.net/q/1861195/-what-is-the-preferred-way-to-count-the-number-of-ocurrences-of-a-certain-character-in-a-string gives more context related to the deprecation issue. Also funny that an 8 years old question suddenly came to the surface – Dasilva

Answer 1

Use str.count() - it's not listed as deprecated.

(Python 2.7.3, Python 3.2.3 - both have no notes about being deprecated).

>>> "test".count("t")
2

I'll presume you meant string.count() - which is depreciated in favour of the method on string objects.

The difference is that str.count() is a method on string objects, while string.count() is a function in the string module.

>>> "test".count("t")
2
>>> import string
>>> string.count("test", "t")
2

It's clear why the latter has been deprecated (and removed in 3.x) in favour of the former.

Overweigh

The first time I ran into the "deprecated" designation I was confused too. You need to pay attention to the advice to use string methods instead: docs.python.org/library/string.html#deprecated-string-functions – Berberine

@MarkRansom I was going to look at the "String methods" link in the documentation, but somehow forgot :D – Dasilva

Answer 2

Use len():

>>> len('abcd')
4

Subdeacon

This was the right answer to the question, before the OP edited it. – Overweigh

Answer 3

This works fine in 2.7.3

>>> strs='aabbccddaa'
>>> strs.count('a')
4

Flit

Answer 4

Without using count you can do this:

def my_count(my_string, key_char):
    return sum(c == key_char for c in my_string)

Result:

>>> my_count('acavddgaaa','a')
5

Corm

Answer 5

The other way can be

strs.__len__()

Bartolomeo

Answer 6

yourString = "I have been to Disney"

# Return a list of indexes of spaces in a string
SpaceList = []
# Return the quantity of (spaces in this example It could be any character)
qty = 0
for i in range(len(yourString)):

    if yourString[i] == ' ':
        SpaceList.append(i)
        qty += 1
print(SpaceList)
print(qty)

Hakan

Answer 7

sentence = str(input("Write a Sentence: "))
count = 0
for word in sentence:
    if word == " ":
    count = count + 1
print(count+1)

Actiniform

1) This counts the number of spaces, but the OP was asking for "count number of ocurrances of certain character", 2) Technically, it's for letter in sentence. – Poise