Question

Define a function below called count candy. The function takes a single argument of type list of strings. Each string in the list is the name of a candy. Complete the function so that it returns a dictionary of key: value pairs, where each key is a string that is the name of a candy and the count is how often that candy appears in the list.

Answer 1

The count_candy function in Python takes a list of candy names and computes a dictionary that maps each candy name to its respective count within the list.

Step-by-step explanation:

Python Function: count_candy

To define the function count_candy that counts the occurrences of each candy in a list and returns a dictionary with this information, you can follow these steps:

1. Create a new empty dictionary called candy_count.
2. Iterate over the list of candies.
3. For each candy, increase its count in the candy_count dictionary or set it to 1 if it's not there yet.
4. Return the candy_count dictionary.

Here is the code for the function:

def count_candy(candy_list):
candy_count = {}
for candy in candy_list:
if candy in candy_count:
candy_count[candy] += 1
else:
candy_count[candy] = 1
return candy_count

This function will effectively count and display the number of times each type of candy appears in the input list.