Python: list.count()

Summary: In this tutorial, we will learn how to use the list.count() method to count the occurrence of elements in the Python list.

The list.count(x) method of the list returns the count of the occurrence of the specified object/element in the list object.

For example here the count() method counts the number of times the integer values 5 and 8 appear in the given list:

>>> l = [5, 8, 5, 9, 6, 9, 5]
>>> l.count(5)
3
>>> l.count(8)
1

Also, if we look into the docstring of the list.count we get that it returns the occurrences of the value (as discussed before):

>>> l.count.__doc__
'Return number of occurrences of value.'

Parameters and Return Type

The list.sort() accepts only one positional argument i.e. the object which needs to be counted and returns the count as the integer value.

Examples using list.count()

Example 1: Count the occurrence of a particular string in the list using list.count()

>>> l = ['sam', 'john', 'robert', 'sam', 'andrew']
>>> l.count('sam')
2

Example 2: Count the occurrence of a tuple in the given list

>>> l = [(1, 'Python'), (2, 'C++'), (3, 'Java'), (1, 'Python')]
>>> l.count((1, 'Python'))
2
>>> l.count((1, 'Java'))
0

Example 3: Count frequency of a character in the string using the count() method

>>> s = 'Pencil Programmer'
>>> l = list(s)
>>> l.count('m')
2

In this example, we are first converting the string into a list of characters using the list() constructor and then using the count() method on it to get the count of the particular character.

Example 4: Check if an element exists in the list using the list.count() method

>>> l = [1, 2, 4, 5, 8]
>>> if l.count(3) > 0:
...     print('Item Exists')
... else:
...     print('Item doesnt Exists')
... 
Item doesnt Exists

Conclusion

The list.count(x) returns the number of times the element x appears in the list.

We can use this method to get the count of an element or to check whether a particular element exists in the given list.