[Python-Dev] function for counting items in a sequence

[Steven Bethard]

A summary response to the issues raised so far...

On what the name should be:
* Adam Olsen - countunique(), countdistinct(), countduplicates()
* Greg Ewing - counteach(), countall()
* Kevin Jacobs - tally()
* Guido - counts() is fine
So I guess I'll stick with counts().

On whether the count of a missing item should be 0 or a KeyError:
* Brett Cannon - 0
* Greg Ewing - 0
Because the number of times an unseen item was seen is 0. So I'll
stick with returning 0. That's the normal behavior for a
defaultdict(int).

Raymond Hettinger suggested that the function should be called
dict.fromcount() instead. I lean towards the collections module
instead of a dict classmethod because the feedback above suggests that
the count of an unseen item should be 0. This means returning a
defaultdict(int), which might be a bit confusing from a classmethod of
*dict*.

Steve
-- 
I'm not *in*-sane. Indeed, I am so far *out* of sane that you appear a
tiny blip on the distant coast of sanity.
        --- Bucky Katt, Get Fuzzy