How do I use itertools.groupby()?

Question

I haven\'t been able to find an understandable explanation of how to actually use Python\'s itertools.groupby() function. What I\'m trying to do is this:

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Answer 1

@CaptSolo, I tried your example, but it didn't work.

from itertools import groupby 
[(c,len(list(cs))) for c,cs in groupby('Pedro Manoel')]

Output:

[('P', 1), ('e', 1), ('d', 1), ('r', 1), ('o', 1), (' ', 1), ('M', 1), ('a', 1), ('n', 1), ('o', 1), ('e', 1), ('l', 1)]

As you can see, there are two o's and two e's, but they got into separate groups. That's when I realized you need to sort the list passed to the groupby function. So, the correct usage would be:

name = list('Pedro Manoel')
name.sort()
[(c,len(list(cs))) for c,cs in groupby(name)]

Output:

[(' ', 1), ('M', 1), ('P', 1), ('a', 1), ('d', 1), ('e', 2), ('l', 1), ('n', 1), ('o', 2), ('r', 1)]

Just remembering, if the list is not sorted, the groupby function will not work!