Count the number of times a letter appears in a text file in Python

In this article, we will be learning different approaches to count the number of times a letter appears in a text file in Python. Below is the content of the text file gfg.txt that we are going to use in the below programs:

Now we will discuss various approaches to get the frequency of a letter in a text file.

Method 1: Using the in-built count() method.

Approach:

• Read the file.
• Store the content of the file in a variable.
• Use the count() method with the argument as a letter whose frequency is required.
• Display the count of the letter.

Implementation:

Python3

# Program to get letter count in a text file

# explicit function to return the letter count
def letterFrequency(fileName, letter):
    # open file in read mode
    file = open(fileName, 'r')

    # store content of the file in a variable
    text = file.read()

    # using count()
    return text.count(letter)


# call the function and display the letter count
print(letterFrequency('gfg.txt', 'g'))

Output:

Method 2: Iterate through the file content in order to compare each character with the given letter.

Approach:

• Read the file.
• Store the content of the file in a variable.
• Assign a counter count variable with 0.
• Iterate through each character, if the character is found to be the given letter then increment the counter.
• Display the count of the letter.

Implementation:

Python3

# Program to get letter count in a text file

# explicit function to return the letter count
def letterFrequency(fileName, letter):
    # open file in read mode
    file = open(fileName, "r")

    # store content of the file in a variable
    text = file.read()

    # declare count variable
    count = 0

    # iterate through each character
    for char in text:

        # compare each character with
        # the given letter
        if char == letter:
            count += 1

    # return letter count
    return count


# call function and display the letter count
print(letterFrequency('gfg.txt', 'g'))

Output: