Generate 200 Random Activation Codes in Python and Count Character Frequencies Instantly

Student question: Generate 200 activation codes in the format xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx using Python and count the occurrence of each character.

Coach analysis highlights: the problem requires fast generation and statistics, suggests using a generator and a dictionary for counting.

Solution

import string
import random

class CreateString:
    def __init__(self):
        self.chars = string.ascii_letters + string.digits

    def __iter__(self):
        for _ in range(200):
            codes = []
            for _ in range(4):
                codes.append("".join(random.choices(self.chars, k=5)))
            yield "-".join(codes)

codes = CreateString()
for code in codes:
    print('code:', code)

result = "".join([x.strip("-") for x in codes])
count_tmp = {}
for k in result:
    count_tmp[k] = count_tmp.get(k, 0) + 1

print(count_tmp)

Running the script prints each generated code and a dictionary showing how many times each character appears.

The implementation leverages the string and random modules; reviewing their source code can be insightful.