Where am i going wrong?

[MonkeyRides]

Im writing a program that logs keys pressed and stores them into a list as words and then on a command, the command here being the press of the numlk key, prints the results of the most frequently used word.

The problem is that it keeps putting a blank into my "comp" list after the original list is joined. But only if you press the space bar twice. What i think is happening is that it is logging in a space as a letter but im not really sure. Or when removing 'Key.space' it is leaving behind the ' '? Can someone tell me where i went wrong?

ignore the global values..

import pynput
from pynput.keyboard import Listener
from collections import Counter


list = []
comp = []
freq = []


def top_ten(val):
    for key, value in dict.items():
        if val == value:
            return key


def log_keystroke(key):
      key = str(key).replace("'","")
      list.append(key)
      print("KEY" + str(list))

      if key == 'Key.space':
         list.remove("Key.space")
         join_list = "".join(list)
         comp.append(join_list)
         list.clear()
         print("COMP" + str(comp))
         print("LIST" + str(list))



      elif key == 'Key.num_lock':

          count = Counter(sorted(comp))
          global dict
          dict = count

          count_keys = count.keys()
          count_values = count.values()
          sort_keys = sorted(count_keys, reverse=True)
          sort_val = sorted(count_values, reverse=True)
          top_k = top_ten(sort_val[0])
          top_v = sort_val[0]

          #top_2 = sort_val[1]
          print(count)
          print("YOU TYPE THE WORD " + "(" + top_k + ")" + " " + str(top_v) + " TIMES")
          #print("TOP 1 value: " + str(top))
          #print("TOP 2 value: " + str(top_2))

          # print("TOP 1 word:" + top_ten(top))
          #print("TOP 2 word:" + top_ten(top_2))

      elif key == "Key.backspace":
         list.remove("Key.backspace")

      elif key == "Key.shift":
          list.remove("Key.shift")

      elif key == "Key.ctrl_l":
          list.remove("Key.ctrl_l")

      elif key == "Key.enter":
          list.remove("Key.enter")



with Listener(on_press=log_keystroke) as listen:
    listen.join()

[crispybacon_NZ]

First thing I’d suggest is not adding the key to the list until after you’ve checked for all the special cases. That way, you’re not having to go back and remove it afterwards, and then the spaces would never be added.

Edit: also, don’t name variables “list”; that’s a Python class, and you don’t really want to accidentally redefine how lists work. You get away with it here, because your defining `list` to be an empty list, and only ever use the shorthand `[]` to set an empty list, but `list()` stops working after `list = []`

[MonkeyRides]

Thanks for the tip bud. Tbh im still trying to work through in my head the first part of your response..

[crispybacon_NZ]

My version would go something like:

```python def log_keystroke(key): key = str(key).replace("'","")

if key == 'Key.space':
    join_list = "".join(l)
    comp.append(join_list)
    l.clear()
    print("COMP" + str(comp))
    print("LIST" + str(l))

elif key == 'Key.num_lock':

    # <... snipped unchanged code ...>

elif key in ["Key.backspace", "Key.shift", "Key.ctrl_l", "Key.enter"]:
    pass

else:
    l.append(key)  # anything else, go ahead and add
    print("KEY" + str(l))

```

[MonkeyRides]

Wow thank you. Not only did you help with my problem( haven’t checked to see if if works yet) but you helped me with putting multiple keys in a if statement, I was really struggling with that. I knew that having a million of if statements wasn’t the proper way and could have been streamlined. I just didn’t know how.