Python 3 How to find variable named as string?

Question

Sorry, i don't know how to name this problem correctly :/ I have variables for each letter in alphabet. When i check word for each letter i want to add +1 to the variable which is named the same as a letter im at currently. I want it to work like this: locals(letter) += 1

Austin · Answer 1 · 2018-12-08T14:45:30.867

4

It's not wise to have variables created for all letters in English and using them (26 variables! Sounds huge).

Better go for Counter approach:

from collections import Counter

word = 'hello'
print(Counter(word))
# Counter({'l': 2, 'h': 1, 'e': 1, 'o': 1})

If you need all letters count:

import string
from collections import Counter

all_letters = string.ascii_lowercase
word = 'hello'
d = dict.fromkeys(all_letters, 0)
d.update(Counter(word))
print(d)

edited Dec 08 '18 at 14:45

answered Dec 08 '18 at 14:29

Austin

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I need each letter count for other calculation so this would only make it more difficult i guess, this was my first idea when i started, thanks tho :) – Stanisław Borkowski Dec 08 '18 at 14:41
@StanisławBorkowski, I edited my answer. Use the last code snippet in that case. – Austin Dec 08 '18 at 14:45
better, but still not what i need XD https://pastebin.com/kgqbfDD7 this is what im doing – Stanisław Borkowski Dec 08 '18 at 14:52
its for this (don't spoil it and write your answer please) https://adventofcode.com/2018/day/2 – Stanisław Borkowski Dec 08 '18 at 14:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 08 '18 at 14:31

You can access the variables by doing this...

locals()[letter]

But the fact you need to check the value of variables named after strings indicates a bad design choice.

Instead you should store those values in a dict.

letters = {
    'a': 0,
    'b': 0,
    'c': 0,
    ...
}

letters['a'] += 1

Python 3 How to find variable named as string?

2 Answers2