Python collection module

deque	list-like container with fast appends and pops on either end	New in version 2.4.
Counter	dict subclass for counting hashable objects	New in version 2.7.

>>> # Tally occurrences of words in a list
>>> cnt = Counter()  # it is same as cnt={}
>>> for word in ['red', 'blue', 'red', 'green', 'blue', 'blue']:
...     cnt[word] += 1
>>> cnt
Counter({'blue': 3, 'red': 2, 'green': 1})

 # Find the ten most common words in Hamlet
>>> import re
>>> words = re.findall(r'\w+', open('hamlet.txt').read().lower())
>>> Counter(words).most_common(10)
[('the', 1143), ('and', 966), ('to', 762), ('of', 669), ('i', 631),
 ('you', 554),  ('a', 546), ('my', 514), ('hamlet', 471), ('in', 451)]

from collections import deque
>>> d = deque('ghi')                 # make a new deque with three items
>>> for elem in d:                   # iterate over the deque's elements
...     print elem.upper()# G, H, I

> d.append('j')                    # add a new entry to the right side
>>> d.appendleft('f')                # add a new entry to the left side
>>> d                                # show the representation of the deque
deque(['f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j']) 

>>> d.pop()                          # return and remove the rightmost item
'j'
>>> d.popleft()                      # return and remove the leftmost item
'f'
>>> list(d)                          # list the contents of the deque