How do I count items in a list based on a condition in Python.

Start by creating a list of names. Note that chuck appears twice in the list.

>>> names = ["vera", "chuck", "dave", "chuck"]
>>> names
['vera', 'chuck', 'dave', 'chuck']

Count occurrences by using Map

By using map you can provide a lambda with the condition like this:

>>> map(lambda x: x == "chuck", names)
<map object at 0x102f4dc18>;

This results in a map object that we can inspect by converting it to a list:

>>> list(map(lambda x: x == "chuck", names))
[False, True, False, True]

You see that the map has converted the values in the list names to boolean values. If you replace list with sum, Python will calculate the total of True values:

>>> sum(map(lambda x: x == "chuck", names))
2

Count occurrences by using List comprehension

List comprehension is another way to map lists to create new lists. You can start by using a list comprehension that does not filter the list at all and thus returns a copy of the original list:

>>> [n for n in names]
['vera', 'chuck', 'dave', 'chuck']

To filter that list, you can use if:

>>> [n for n in names if n == "chuck"]
['chuck', 'chuck']

Now use the len function to count the occurrences:

>>> len([n for n in names if n == "chuck"])
2