Steve Crook wrote: > I've always done key creation/incrementation using: >> if key in dict: > dict[key] += 1 > else: > dict[key] = 1 Your way is usually faster than > dict[key] = dict.get(key, 0) + 1 >> Whilst certainly more compact, I'd be interested in views on how > pythonesque this method is. You may also consider http://docs.python.org/library/collections.html#collections.defaultdict http://docs.python.org/library/collections.html#collections.Counter