💡 Problem Formulation: We are often faced with the challenge of extracting numerical information from text. Specifically, this article addresses the task of counting the number of unique integers present in a given string. For instance, given the input string “abc123def111gh22”, the desired output is 3, corresponding to the unique integers 123, 111, and 22.
Method 1: Using Regular Expressions and Sets
This method involves utilizing Python’s regular expressions module re to find all numeric sequences in the input string and then converting the result into a set to count distinct numbers. The strengths of this method include clarity and conciseness. A drawback is the performance cost for very large strings, due to the set creation and the overhead of regular expression processing.
Here’s an example:
import re
def count_unique_integers(string):
numbers = re.findall(r'\d+', string)
unique_numbers = set(numbers)
return len(unique_numbers)
print(count_unique_integers("abc123def111gh22"))Output: 3
This snippet defines a function count_unique_integers that uses the findall function from re to match all substrings of one or more digits. The matched numbers are then deduplicated using a set, and the size of the set is returned, giving the count of unique integers.
Method 2: Using Itertools groupby
By grouping digits and non-digits using the itertools.groupby method, you can iterate through the string and count unique integers without explicitly using regular expressions. This method is especially useful if you want to avoid regex altogether. However, it involves more code and can be slightly harder to understand compared to a regex-based solution.
Here’s an example:
from itertools import groupby
def count_unique_integers(string):
grouped = groupby(string, key=str.isdigit)
num_str_set = set(''.join(g) for k, g in grouped if k)
return len(num_str_set)
print(count_unique_integers("abc123def111gh22"))Output: 3
This code uses groupby to collect contiguous groupings of either digits or non-digits. The key function str.isdigit is used to distinguish digits. The generator expression then creates strings of digits from these groupings, which are collected into a set, and the count of unique numbers is returned.
Method 3: Looping Through the String
Here we manually iterate through the string character by character, building integers as we go and adding them to a set for unique counting. This method offers more control and doesn’t require additional libraries, but it is more verbose and less Pythonic.
Here’s an example:
def count_unique_integers(string):
unique_integers = set()
number = ''
for s in string:
if s.isdigit():
number += s
elif number:
unique_integers.add(int(number))
number = ''
if number:
unique_integers.add(int(number))
return len(unique_integers)
print(count_unique_integers("abc123def111gh22"))Output: 3
The function count_unique_integers loops through the input string, accumulates digits to form numbers, and adds them to a set upon encountering a non-digit. After the loop ends, it checks if there’s a remaining number and adds it to the set. The length of the set gives the desired count.
Method 4: Using String Methods and Sets
We can also use Python string methods like isdigit and treat the string as a space-separated word sequence after replacing non-digit characters. This method may be easier to understand for those familiar with string operations but can be less efficient with memory usage due to the creation of intermediate lists and strings.
Here’s an example:
def count_unique_integers(string):
for c in string:
if not c.isdigit():
string = string.replace(c, ' ')
unique_numbers = set(map(int, string.split()))
return len(unique_numbers)
print(count_unique_integers("abc123def111gh22"))Output: 3
In this code, non-digit characters in the input string are replaced with spaces, creating a space-delimited string of numbers. Then, the string is split into a list of number strings, which are converted into integers and added to a set to eliminate duplicates. The length of this set represents the count of unique integers.
Bonus One-Liner Method 5: Comprehensive Set and Regex
Combining Python’s list comprehensions, regular expressions, and set construction can produce a compact one-liner method for finding the count of unique integers in a string. This is an elegant solution but being very compact makes it less readable, especially for beginners.
Here’s an example:
import re
def count_unique_integers(string):
return len(set(re.findall(r'\d+', string)))
print(count_unique_integers("abc123def111gh22"))Output: 3
This one-liner defines a function that uses findall from the re module to match all digit sequences and constructs a set from these to automatically deduplicate them, before returning the size of the set.
Summary/Discussion
- Method 1: Using Regular Expressions and Sets. Efficient and readable. Might not be the best for large strings.
- Method 2: Using Itertools groupby. Avoids regex. More complex logic that may be harder to follow.
- Method 3: Looping Through the String. Offers fine-grained control and no extra libraries needed. Verbose and not as elegant as other methods.
- Method 4: Using String Methods and Sets. Easy to understand but possibly memory-inefficient.
- Bonus Method 5: Comprehensive Set and Regex One-Liner. Elegant and compact, but less readable for those new to the language.