Counting Tokens in a Paragraph with Python

When reading text from a source, we sometimes need to know some statistical information about the types of vocabulary used. This makes it necessary to count the number of words of a specific type and the number of lines in a given text. In the following examples, we show programs that use two different methods to count the number of words in a paragraph. Consider a text file containing a summary of a Hollywood movie.

Read file

FileName = ("PathGodFather.txt")

with open(FileName, 'r') as file:
    lines_in_file = file.read()
    print lines_in_file

When we run the above program, we get the following output –

Vito Corleone is the aging don (head) of the Corleone Mafia Family. His youngest son Michael has returned from WWII just in time to see the wedding of Connie Corleone (Michael's sister) to Carlo Rizzi. All of Michael's family is involved with the Mafia, but Michael just wants to live a normal life. Drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo is looking for Mafia families to offer him protection in exchange for a profit of the drug money. He approaches Don Corleone about it, but, much against The Don's lawyer, Tom Hagen, advises him against drug use and turns down the offer. This does not please Sollozzo, who has the Don shot down by some of his hit men. The Don barely survives, which leads his son, Michael, to begin a violent mob war against Sollozzo and tears the Corleone family apart.

<h2>Counting Words with nltk</h2>
<p>Next, we use the nltk module to count the words in the text. Note that the word "(head)" is counted as three words, not just one. </p>
<pre><code class="language-python line-numbers">import nltk

FileName = ("PathGodFather.txt")

with open(FileName, 'r') as file:
lines_in_file = file.read()

nltk_tokens = nltk.word_tokenize(lines_in_file)
print nltk_tokens
print "n"
print "Number of Words: " , len(nltk_tokens)

When we run the above program, we get the following output:

['Vito', 'Corleone', 'is', 'the', 'aging', 'don', '(', 'head', ')', 'of', 'the', 'Corleone', 'Mafia', 'Family', '.', 'His', 'youngest', 'son', 'Michael', 'has', 'returned', 'from', 'WWII', 'just', 'in', 'time', 'to', 'see', 'the', 'wedding', 'of', 'Connie', 'Corleone', '(', 'Michael', "'s", 'sister', ')', 'to', 'Carlo', 'Rizzi', '.', 'All', 'of', 'Michael', "'s", 'family', 'is', 'involved', 'with', 'the', 'Mafia', ',', 'but', 'Michael', 'just', 'wants', 'to', 'live', 'a', 'normal', 'life', '.', 'Drug', 'dealer', 'Virgil', 'Sollozzo', 'is', 'looking', 'for', 'Mafia', 'families', 'to', 'offer', 'him', 'protection', 'in', 'exchange', 'for', 'a', 'profit', 'of', 'the', 'drug', 'money', '.', 'He', 'approaches', 'Don', 'Corleone', 'about', 'it', ',', 'but', ',', 'much', 'against', 'the', 'advice', 'of', 'the', 'Don', "'s", 'lawyer', 'Tom', 'Hagen', ',', 'the', 'Don', 'is', 'morally', 'against', 'the', 'use', 'of', 'drugs', ',', 'and', 'turns', 'down', 'the', 'offer', '.', 'This', 'does', 'not', 'please', 'Sollozzo', ',', 'who', 'has', 'the', 'Don', 'shot', 'down', 'by', 'some', 'of', 'his', 'hit', 'men', '.', 'The', 'Don', 'barely', 'survives', ',', 'which', 'leads', 'his', 'son', 'Michael', 'to', 'begin', 'a', 'violent', 'mob', 'war', 'against', 'Sollozzo', 'and', 'tears', 'the', 'Corleone', 'family', 'apart', '.']

Number of Words: 167

Counting Words Using the Split Function

Next, we use the Split function to count the words, and the word “(head)” will be counted as one word instead of three as when using nltk.

FileName = ("PathGodFather.txt")

with open(FileName, 'r') as file:
lines_in_file = file.read()

print lines_in_file.split()
print "n"
print "Number of Words: ", len(lines_in_file.split())

When we run the above program, we get the following output –

['Vito', 'Corleone', 'is', 'the', 'aging', 'don', '(head)', 'of', 'the', 'Corleone', 'Mafia', 'Family.', 'His', 'youngest', 'son', 'Michael', 'has', 'returned', 'from', 'WWII', 'just', 'in', 'time', 'to', 'see', 'the', 'wedding', 'of', 'Connie', 'Corleone', "(Michael's", 'sister)', 'to', 'Carlo', 'Rizzi.', 'All', 'of', "Michael's", 'family', 'is', 'involved', 'with', 'the', 'Mafia,', 'but', 'Michael', 'just', 'wants', 'to', 'live', 'a', 'normal', 'life.', 'Drug', 'dealer', 'Virgil', 'Sollozzo', 'is', 'looking', 'for', 'Mafia', 'families', 'to', 'offer', 'him', 'protection', 'in', 'exchange', 'for', 'a', 'profit', 'of', 'the', 'drug', 'money.', 'He', 'approaches', 'Don', 'Corleone', 'about', 'it,', 'but,', 'much', 'against', 'the', 'advice', 'of', 'the', "Don's", 'lawyer', 'Tom', 'Hagen,', 'the', 'Don', 'is', 'morally', 'against', 'the', 'use', 'of', 'drugs,', 'and', 'turns', 'down', 'the', 'offer.', 'This', 'does', 'not', 'please', 'Sollozzo,', 'who', 'has', 'the', 'Don', 'shot', 'down', 'by', 'some', 'of', 'his', 'hit', 'men.', 'The', 'Don', 'barely', 'survives,', 'which', 'leads', 'his', 'son', 'Michael', 'to', 'begin', 'a', 'violent', 'mob', 'war', 'against', 'Sollozzo', 'and', 'tears', 'the', 'Corleone', 'family', 'apart.']

Number of Words: 146