Visual Representation using Charts

In this blogpost we will try understanding how the function, Charts, works. Following is the example of a Barplot 

 Taking the Radish Survey we can create a chart in the following manner.  

Let us try and understand the code. One Step at a time

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np names = [] votes = [] for radish in counts: names.append(radish) votes.append(counts[radish]) x = np.arange(len(counts)) plt.bar(x, votes) plt.xticks(x + 0.5, names, rotation=90)


First, Two modules are being imported here. Pyplot is a way to plot graph data with Matplotlib. NumPy provides number functions for Python.

names = [] votes = [] for radish in counts: names.append(radish) votes.append(counts[radish])

Now, This loop does the formatting of the dictionary so that it can be easily sent to matplotlib.

x = np.arange(len(counts))

This solves the purpose of spreading the numbers evenly on the X-axis.

plt.bar(x, votes)

This function creates the actual bargraph where x is the position and votes are the height.

plt.xticks(x + 0.5, names, rotation=90)

This specifies a range of values to use as labels.

No Strings Attached

In this blogpost we"ll be looking at how Python helps us find the winner in a voting scenario. Here we are looking at votes been given to Varieties of Radish. We have 300 voters voting for 11 varieties of Radish. Following are the steps we have followed -

Step 1 - Reading Data
The data is available in a text file format and is not comma seperated. This is how the first line of the data looks like -

Evie Pulsford - April CrossMatilda Condon - April CrossSamantha Mansell - Championgeronima trevisani - cherry belle.

Now we use a string called split() to arrange the data such that it displays 1 Name and 1 Vote in a line and we have "voted for" in between the 2 words.

Step 2 - Inspecting Votes
Here we try to find out how many people have voted for the variety White Icicle by simply finding the string "White Icicle" on every line. The code is as follows -

 
Step 3 - Counting Actual Votes
Moving forward, we count the votes for White Icicle, Diakon, and Sicily Giant. We have defined a function here by the name 'count_votes' for a simple reason i.e to make our lives easier. The code is as follows - 

Step 4 - Counting all the votes
Now we perform the same function for all the varieties with a slightly different code. You will notice something funny.

Python returns the counts for some of the variety twice. This happens because all the data are not uniform. For Example - We have-
"White Icicle"
"white Icicle"
" White Icicle"
Python reads this as 3 different varieties. So, now our motive is to combine the votes for the 3 types.

Step 4 - Uniting the varieties with spelling error.

Step 5 - Correcting Double Space 
Correcting double space error is done by replacing double space with single space in the total document.

 Step 6 - Finding the Winner
We are almost done here. What remains is finding double votes, printing in a more user friendly manner and finally finding the winner.