Update Counter collection in python with string, not letter

You can use:

c["red"]+=1
# or
c.update({"red": 1})
# or 
c.update(["red"])

All these options will work regardless of the key being present or not. And if present, they will increase the count by 1

You can update it with a dictionary, since add another string is same as update the key with count +1:

from collections import Counter
c = Counter(['black','blue'])

c.update({"red": 1})  

c
# Counter({'black': 1, 'blue': 1, 'red': 1})

If the key already exists, the count will increase by one:

c.update({"red": 1})

c
# Counter({'black': 1, 'blue': 1, 'red': 2})

c.update(['red'])
>>> c
Counter({'black': 1, 'blue': 1, 'red': 1})

Source can be an iterable, a dictionary, or another Counter instance.

Although a string is an iterable, the result is not what you expected. First convert it to a list, tuple, etc.

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