finding and count unique items in python list code example

Example 1: python count number of unique elements in a list

# Basic syntax:
len(set(my_list))
# By definition, sets only contain unique elements, so when the list
# is converted to a set all duplicates are removed. 

# Example usage:
my_list = ['so', 'so', 'so', 'many', 'duplicated', 'words']
len(set(my_list))
--> 4

# Note, list(set(my_list)) is a useful way to return a list containing
#	only the unique elements in my_list

Example 2: count unique values in python

words = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'a']
unique_words = set(words)             # == set(['a', 'b', 'c'])
unique_word_count = len(unique_words) # == 3