Exercise 3: Item Counter

Your Task

In a game inventory, you might have a list like ["sword", "potion", "shield", "potion"]. Write a function that counts how many times a specific item appears.

Write a function count_item(inventory, item) that:

Takes a list of items and the name of an item to search for
Returns how many times that item appears
Should be case-insensitive — "Sword" and "sword" count as the same thing

Starter Code

def count_item(inventory, item):
    # Your code here
    pass

# Test your function:
backpack = ["sword", "potion", "shield", "potion", "Sword"]

print(count_item(backpack, "potion"))  # Should print: 2
print(count_item(backpack, "sword"))   # Should print: 2
print(count_item(backpack, "bow"))     # Should print: 0

Hints

Hint 1

Use a counter variable. Loop through the list and add 1 each time you find a match.

Hint 2

To compare case-insensitively, convert both strings to lowercase with .lower():

if thing.lower() == item.lower():

Solution

def count_item(inventory, item):
    count = 0
    for thing in inventory:
        if thing.lower() == item.lower():
            count += 1
    return count

Item Counter

Exercise 3: Item Counter

Your Task

Starter Code

Hints

Try it yourself

Code: Item Counter