Python - Is a dictionary slow to find frequency of each character?
I am trying to find a frequency of each symbol in any given text using an algorithm of O(n) complexity. My algorithm looks like:
s = len(text)
P = 1.0/s
freqs = {}
for char in text:
try:
freqs[char]+=P
except:
freqs[char]=P
but I doubt that this dictionary-method is fast enough, because it depends on the underlying implementation of the dictionary methods. Is this the fastest method?
UPDATE: there is no increase in speed if collections and integers are used. It is because the algorithm is already of O(n) complexity, so no essential speedup is possible.
For example, results for 1MB text:
without collections:
real 0m0.695s
with collections:
real 0m0.625s
Solution 1:
Performance comparison
Note: time in the table doesn't include the time it takes to load files.
| approach | american-english, | big.txt, | time w.r.t. defaultdict |
| | time, seconds | time, seconds | |
|----------------+-------------------+---------------+-------------------------|
| Counter | 0.451 | 3.367 | 3.6 |
| setdefault | 0.348 | 2.320 | 2.5 |
| list | 0.277 | 1.822 | 2 |
| try/except | 0.158 | 1.068 | 1.2 |
| defaultdict | 0.141 | 0.925 | 1 |
| numpy | 0.012 | 0.076 | 0.082 |
| S.Mark's ext. | 0.003 | 0.019 | 0.021 |
| ext. in Cython | 0.001 | 0.008 | 0.0086 |
#+TBLFM: $4=$3/@7$3;%.2g
The files used: '/usr/share/dict/american-english' and 'big.txt'.
The script that compares 'Counter', 'setdefault', 'list', 'try/except', 'defaultdict', 'numpy', 'cython' -based, and @S.Mark's solutions is at http://gist.github.com/347000
The fastest solution is Python extension written in Cython:
import cython
@cython.locals(
chars=unicode,
i=cython.Py_ssize_t,
L=cython.Py_ssize_t[0x10000])
def countchars_cython(chars):
for i in range(0x10000): # unicode code points > 0xffff are not supported
L[i] = 0
for c in chars:
L[c] += 1
return {unichr(i): L[i] for i in range(0x10000) if L[i]}
Previous comparison:
* python (dict) : 0.5 seconds
* python (list) : 0.5 (ascii) (0.2 if read whole file in memory)
* perl : 0.5
* python (numpy): 0.07
* c++ : 0.05
* c : 0.008 (ascii)
Input data:
$ tail /usr/share/dict/american-english
éclat's
élan
élan's
émigré
émigrés
épée
épées
étude
étude's
études
$ du -h /usr/share/dict/american-english
912K /usr/share/dict/american-english
python (Counter): 0.5 seconds
#!/usr/bin/env python3.1
import collections, fileinput, textwrap
chars = (ch for word in fileinput.input() for ch in word.rstrip())
# faster (0.4s) but less flexible: chars = open(filename).read()
print(textwrap.fill(str(collections.Counter(chars)), width=79))
Run it:
$ time -p python3.1 count_char.py /usr/share/dict/american-english
Counter({'e': 87823, 's': 86620, 'i': 66548, 'a': 62778, 'n': 56696, 'r':
56286, 't': 51588, 'o': 48425, 'l': 39914, 'c': 30020, 'd': 28068, 'u': 25810,
"'": 24511, 'g': 22262, 'p': 20917, 'm': 20747, 'h': 18453, 'b': 14137, 'y':
12367, 'f': 10049, 'k': 7800, 'v': 7573, 'w': 6924, 'z': 3088, 'x': 2082, 'M':
1686, 'C': 1549, 'S': 1515, 'q': 1447, 'B': 1387, 'j': 1376, 'A': 1345, 'P':
974, 'L': 912, 'H': 860, 'T': 858, 'G': 811, 'D': 809, 'R': 749, 'K': 656, 'E':
618, 'J': 539, 'N': 531, 'W': 507, 'F': 502, 'O': 354, 'I': 344, 'V': 330, 'Z':
150, 'Y': 140, 'é': 128, 'U': 117, 'Q': 63, 'X': 42, 'è': 29, 'ö': 12, 'ü': 12,
'ó': 10, 'á': 10, 'ä': 7, 'ê': 6, 'â': 6, 'ñ': 6, 'ç': 4, 'å': 3, 'û': 3, 'í':
2, 'ô': 2, 'Å': 1})
real 0.44
user 0.43
sys 0.01
perl: 0.5 seconds
time -p perl -MData::Dumper -F'' -lanwe'$c{$_}++ for (@F);
END{ $Data::Dumper::Terse = 1; $Data::Dumper::Indent = 0; print Dumper(\%c) }
' /usr/share/dict/american-english
Output:
{'S' => 1515,'K' => 656,'' => 29,'d' => 28068,'Y' => 140,'E' => 618,'y' => 12367,'g' => 22262,'e' => 87823,'' => 2,'J' => 539,'' => 241,'' => 3,'' => 6,'' => 4,'' => 128,'D' => 809,'q' => 1447,'b' => 14137,'z' => 3088,'w' => 6924,'Q' => 63,'' => 10,'M' => 1686,'C' => 1549,'' => 10,'L' => 912,'X' => 42,'P' => 974,'' => 12,'\'' => 24511,'' => 6,'a' => 62778,'T' => 858,'N' => 531,'j' => 1376,'Z' => 150,'u' => 25810,'k' => 7800,'t' => 51588,'' => 6,'W' => 507,'v' => 7573,'s' => 86620,'B' => 1387,'H' => 860,'c' => 30020,'' => 12,'I' => 344,'' => 3,'G' => 811,'U' => 117,'F' => 502,'' => 2,'r' => 56286,'x' => 2082,'V' => 330,'h' => 18453,'f' => 10049,'' => 1,'i' => 66548,'A' => 1345,'O' => 354,'n' => 56696,'m' => 20747,'l' => 39914,'' => 7,'p' => 20917,'R' => 749,'o' => 48425}
real 0.51
user 0.49
sys 0.02
python (numpy): 0.07 seconds
Based on Ants Aasma's answer (modified to support unicode):
#!/usr/bin/env python
import codecs, itertools, operator, sys
import numpy
filename = sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv)>1 else '/usr/share/dict/american-english'
# ucs2 or ucs4 python?
dtype = {2: numpy.uint16, 4: numpy.uint32}[len(buffer(u"u"))]
# count ordinals
text = codecs.open(filename, encoding='utf-8').read()
a = numpy.frombuffer(text, dtype=dtype)
counts = numpy.bincount(a)
# pretty print
counts = [(unichr(i), v) for i, v in enumerate(counts) if v]
counts.sort(key=operator.itemgetter(1))
print ' '.join('("%s" %d)' % c for c in counts if c[0] not in ' \t\n')
Output:
("Å" 1) ("í" 2) ("ô" 2) ("å" 3) ("û" 3) ("ç" 4) ("â" 6) ("ê" 6) ("ñ" 6) ("ä" 7) ("á" 10) ("ó" 10) ("ö" 12) ("ü" 12) ("è" 29) ("X" 42) ("Q" 63) ("U" 117) ("é" 128) ("Y" 140) ("Z" 150) ("V" 330) ("I" 344) ("O" 354) ("F" 502) ("W" 507) ("N" 531) ("J" 539) ("E" 618) ("K" 656) ("R" 749) ("D" 809) ("G" 811) ("T" 858) ("H" 860) ("L" 912) ("P" 974) ("A" 1345) ("j" 1376) ("B" 1387) ("q" 1447) ("S" 1515) ("C" 1549) ("M" 1686) ("x" 2082) ("z" 3088) ("w" 6924) ("v" 7573) ("k" 7800) ("f" 10049) ("y" 12367) ("b" 14137) ("h" 18453) ("m" 20747) ("p" 20917) ("g" 22262) ("'" 24511) ("u" 25810) ("d" 28068) ("c" 30020) ("l" 39914) ("o" 48425) ("t" 51588) ("r" 56286) ("n" 56696) ("a" 62778) ("i" 66548) ("s" 86620) ("e" 87823)
real 0.07
user 0.06
sys 0.01
c++: 0.05 seconds
// $ g++ *.cc -lboost_program_options
// $ ./a.out /usr/share/dict/american-english
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <cstdlib> // exit
#include <boost/program_options/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp>
#include <boost/tr1/unordered_map.hpp>
#include <boost/foreach.hpp>
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
using namespace std;
// open input file
if (argc != 2) {
cerr << "Usage: " << argv[0] << " <filename>\n";
exit(2);
}
wifstream f(argv[argc-1]);
// assume the file has utf-8 encoding
locale utf8_locale(locale(""),
new boost::program_options::detail::utf8_codecvt_facet);
f.imbue(utf8_locale);
// count characters frequencies
typedef std::tr1::unordered_map<wchar_t, size_t> hashtable_t;
hashtable_t counts;
for (wchar_t ch; f >> ch; )
counts[ch]++;
// print result
wofstream of("output.utf8");
of.imbue(utf8_locale);
BOOST_FOREACH(hashtable_t::value_type i, counts)
of << "(" << i.first << " " << i.second << ") ";
of << endl;
}
Result:
$ cat output.utf8
(í 2) (O 354) (P 974) (Q 63) (R 749) (S 1,515) (ñ 6) (T 858) (U 117) (ó 10) (ô 2) (V 330) (W 507) (X 42) (ö 12) (Y 140) (Z 150) (û 3) (ü 12) (a 62,778) (b 14,137) (c 30,020) (d 28,068) (e 87,823) (f 10,049) (g 22,262) (h 18,453) (i 66,548) (j 1,376) (k 7,800) (l 39,914) (m 20,747) (n 56,696) (o 48,425) (p 20,917) (q 1,447) (r 56,286) (s 86,620) (t 51,588) (u 25,810) (Å 1) (' 24,511) (v 7,573) (w 6,924) (x 2,082) (y 12,367) (z 3,088) (A 1,345) (B 1,387) (C 1,549) (á 10) (â 6) (D 809) (E 618) (F 502) (ä 7) (å 3) (G 811) (H 860) (ç 4) (I 344) (J 539) (è 29) (K 656) (é 128) (ê 6) (L 912) (M 1,686) (N 531)
c (ascii): 0.0079 seconds
// $ gcc -O3 cc_ascii.c -o cc_ascii && time -p ./cc_ascii < input.txt
#include <stdio.h>
enum { N = 256 };
size_t counts[N];
int main(void) {
// count characters
int ch = -1;
while((ch = getchar()) != EOF)
++counts[ch];
// print result
size_t i = 0;
for (; i < N; ++i)
if (counts[i])
printf("('%c' %zu) ", (int)i, counts[i]);
return 0;
}
Solution 2:
How about avoiding float operations inside the loop and do it after everything is done?
By that way, you could just do +1 everytime, and its should be faster.
And better use collections.defaultdict as S.Lott advised.
freqs=collections.defaultdict(int)
for char in text:
freqs[char]+=1
Or You may want to try, collections.Counter in python 2.7+
>>> collections.Counter("xyzabcxyz")
Counter({'y': 2, 'x': 2, 'z': 2, 'a': 1, 'c': 1, 'b': 1})
Or
You may try psyco, which do just-in-time compiling for python. You have loops, so I think you would get some performance gain with psyco
Edit 1:
I did some benchmarks base on big.txt (~6.5 MB) which is used in spelling corrector by peter norvig
Text Length: 6488666
dict.get : 11.9060001373 s
93 chars {u' ': 1036511, u'$': 110, u'(': 1748, u',': 77675, u'0': 3064, u'4': 2417, u'8': 2527, u'<': 2, u'@': 8, ....
if char in dict : 9.71799993515 s
93 chars {u' ': 1036511, u'$': 110, u'(': 1748, u',': 77675, u'0': 3064, u'4': 2417, u'8': 2527, u'<': 2, u'@': 8, ....
dict try/catch : 7.35899996758 s
93 chars {u' ': 1036511, u'$': 110, u'(': 1748, u',': 77675, u'0': 3064, u'4': 2417, u'8': 2527, u'<': 2, u'@': 8, ....
collections.default : 7.29699993134 s
93 chars defaultdict(<type 'int'>, {u' ': 1036511, u'$': 110, u'(': 1748, u',': 77675, u'0': 3064, u'4': 2417, u'8': 2527, u'<': 2, u'@': 8, ....
CPU Specs: 1.6GHz Intel Mobile Atom CPU
According to that, dict.get is slowest and collections.defaultdict is fastest, try/except is also the fast one.
Edit 2:
Added collections.Counter benchmarks, Its slower than dict.get and took 15s in my laptop
collections.Counter : 15.3439998627 s
93 chars Counter({u' ': 1036511, u'e': 628234, u't': 444459, u'a': 395872, u'o': 382683, u'n': 362397, u'i': 348464,
Solution 3:
I've written Char Counter C Extension to Python, looks like 300x faster than collections.Counter and 150x faster than collections.default(int)
C Char Counter : 0.0469999313354 s
93 chars {u' ': 1036511, u'$': 110, u'(': 1748, u',': 77675, u'0': 3064, u'4': 2417, u'8': 2527, u'<': 2, u'@': 8,
Here is Char Counter C Extension Codes
static PyObject *
CharCounter(PyObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *keywds)
{
wchar_t *t1;unsigned l1=0;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args,"u#",&t1,&l1)) return NULL;
PyObject *resultList,*itemTuple;
for(unsigned i=0;i<=0xffff;i++)char_counter[i]=0;
unsigned chlen=0;
for(unsigned i=0;i<l1;i++){
if(char_counter[t1[i]]==0)char_list[chlen++]=t1[i];
char_counter[t1[i]]++;
}
resultList = PyList_New(0);
for(unsigned i=0;i<chlen;i++){
itemTuple = PyTuple_New(2);
PyTuple_SetItem(itemTuple, 0,PyUnicode_FromWideChar(&char_list[i],1));
PyTuple_SetItem(itemTuple, 1,PyInt_FromLong(char_counter[char_list[i]]));
PyList_Append(resultList, itemTuple);
Py_DECREF(itemTuple);
};
return resultList;
}
Where char_counter, and char_list are malloc-ated at module level, so no need to malloc every time when function calls.
char_counter=(unsigned*)malloc(sizeof(unsigned)*0x10000);
char_list=(wchar_t*)malloc(sizeof(wchar_t)*0x10000);
It returns a List with Tuples
[(u'T', 16282), (u'h', 287323), (u'e', 628234), (u' ', 1036511), (u'P', 8946), (u'r', 303977), (u'o', 382683), ...
To convert to dict format, just dict() will do.
dict(CharCounter(text))
PS: Benchmark included the time converting to dict
CharCounter accept only Python Unicode String u"", if the text is utf8, need to do .decode("utf8") in advance.
Input Supports Unicode until Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) - 0x0000 to 0xFFFF
Solution 4:
No it's not the fastest, because you know that the characters have a limited range and you could use a list and direct indexing, using the numeric representation of the character, to store the frequencies.
Solution 5:
It is very, very hard to beat dict. It is very highly tuned since almost everything in Python is dict-based.