How can I use Counter in Python?

What is the Counter class in Python?

The Counter class in Python is a part of the collections module and is used to count hashable objects. It creates a dictionary-like object where keys are the elements and values are their counts.

Can you give me an example of how to use Counter?

Sure! Here's a simple example:

from collections import Counter

# Sample list
fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'apple', 'orange', 'banana', 'banana']

# Using Counter
fruit_count = Counter(fruits)
print(fruit_count)

This will output: Counter({'banana': 3, 'apple': 2, 'orange': 1}).

What if I want to count characters in a string?

You can use Counter in the same way! For example:

from collections import Counter

# Sample string
text = "hello world"

# Using Counter
char_count = Counter(text)
print(char_count)

This will count each character in the string.

Are there any methods to get the most common elements?

Yes! You can use the most_common() method. For example:

print(fruit_count.most_common(1))  # This will return the most common fruit.