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Unable to produce unique folder names from a list of names through a function

July 18, 2023

I’m trying to create a function in such a way that when I supply a list of folder names to it, it will add _1 to the end of the string to produce a unique folder name if the folder name is not already in the folder_dict.

folder_dict = {}

def get_unique_folder_name(name):
    if name not in folder_dict:
        folder_dict[name] = name
    else:
        folder_dict[name] += '_1'

    return folder_dict[name]


items = [
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5_1',
    'Home_J5_1_1',
]

for item in items:
    print(get_unique_folder_name(item))

Current output:

Home_J5
Home_J5_1
Home_J5_1_1
Home_J5_1
Home_J5_1_1

Excepted output:

Home_J5
Home_J5_1
Home_J5_1_1
Home_J5_1_1_1
Home_J5_1_1_1_1

>Solution :

I’d restructure the code a little bit:

def get_unique_folder_name(items):
    seen = set()
    for item in items:
        while item in seen:
            item += '_1'
        seen.add(item)
        yield item


items = [
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5_1',
    'Home_J5_1_1',
]

for item in get_unique_folder_name(items):
    print(item)

Prints:

Home_J5
Home_J5_1
Home_J5_1_1
Home_J5_1_1_1
Home_J5_1_1_1_1

EDIT: Modified structure (to avoid the global variable):

def get_unique_folder_name():

    seen = set()

    def _inner(item):
        while item in seen:
            item += '_1'
        seen.add(item)
        return item

    return _inner

items = [
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5',
    'Home_J5_1',
    'Home_J5_1_1',
]

u = get_unique_folder_name()

for item in items:
    print(u(item))