Re: Hash Function

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 5 December 2012 10:07, Jonathan Karsch <address@hidden> wrote:
> I am trying to figure out how many distinct words are in a text
> document, and how many instances there are of each.

Octave does not have hashes nor sufficiently flexible associative
arrays. I recommend using a language other than Octave for this task.
For example, here is how you can do it in Python:

    #!/usr/bin/env python

    import sys
    from collections import defaultdict

    f = open(sys.argv[1])

    wordcount = defaultdict(int)

    for line in f.readlines():
        words = line.split()
        for word in words:
            wordcount[word] += 1

    f.close()

    for word, count in wordcount.iteritems():
        print "%s: %d" % (word, count)


Here is how to do it in Perl:

    #!/usr/bin/env perl -w

    use strict;

    my %wordcount;
    while(<>){
      my @words = split;
      foreach my $word (@words){
        $wordcount{$word}++;
      }
    }


    while (my ($word, $count) = each %wordcount){
      print "$word: $count\n";
    }


Both languages are installed already in your McIntosh PC. Put either
of those programs into a file named count_words, give it executable
permissions, and do "./count_words somefile".

HTH,
- Jordi G. H.