From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2002-09-10T07:44:12+09:00
Subject: Re: How best to histogram words?

andrew_queisser@Hp.com (andrew queisser) writes:

> I want to count the occurrence of specific words. In the past I've
> used a hash as shown below. Is there a better way? I don't know which
> words will occur, otherwise I'd just preinitialize the hash to all
> zeros.

>     # option 1: try to increment cell, catch error
>     # option 2: initialize on first use

 # option 3: use Hash's default value   :)

 counts = Hash.new(0)

 ARGF.each {|line| line.scan(/\w+/).each {|w| counts[w] += 1}}

 counts.keys.sort.each {|k| printf("%4d: %s\n", counts[k], k) }


Cheers


Dave