Example of using collections.Counter https://twitter.com/DavidMezzetti/status/1204493772274438151

collections_counter_example.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
from collections import Counter

# https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/collections.html?highlight=counter#collections.Counter

# Example of using collections.Counter to count item
# https://twitter.com/DavidMezzetti/status/1204493772274438151


def reader(file_name):
    # don't read the entire file into memory
    with open(file_name) as f:
        for line in f:
            for x in line.strip().split(" "):
                if x:
                    yield x


def run(file_name, max_results=3):
    c = Counter(reader(file_name))
    results = [k for k, _ in c.most_common(max_results)]
    print(results)
    return 0


if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(run(sys.argv[1]))