How do I count unique values inside a list

Question

So I'm trying to make this program that will ask the user for input and store the values in an array / list.
Then when a blank line is entered it will tell the user how many of those values are unique.
I'm building this for real life reasons and not as a problem set.

enter: happy
enter: rofl
enter: happy
enter: mpg8
enter: Cpp
enter: Cpp
enter:
There are 4 unique words!

My code is as follows:

# ask for input
ipta = raw_input("Word: ")

# create list 
uniquewords = [] 
counter = 0
uniquewords.append(ipta)

a = 0   # loop thingy
# while loop to ask for input and append in list
while ipta: 
  ipta = raw_input("Word: ")
  new_words.append(input1)
  counter = counter + 1

for p in uniquewords:

..and that's about all I've gotten so far.
I'm not sure how to count the unique number of words in a list?
If someone can post the solution so I can learn from it, or at least show me how it would be great, thanks!

Answer 1

In addition, use collections.Counter to refactor your code:

from collections import Counter

words = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'a']

Counter(words).keys() # equals to list(set(words))
Counter(words).values() # counts the elements' frequency

Output:

['a', 'c', 'b']
[2, 1, 1]