5 ms·

Just did it for 28000 C files. Here's the results: a 0.772163 b 1.2679 c 1.78209 d 1.1195 e 0.881398 f 1.47252 g 0.924242

Just did it for 28000 C files. Here's the results: a 0.772163 b 1.2679 c 1.78209 d 1.1195 e 0.881398 f 1.47252 g 0.924242 h 0.358954 i 1.06756 j 0.835313 k 1.41458 l 0.981729 m 1.08955 n 0.9156 o 0.73849 p 1.74468 q 4.2497 r 1.21577 s 1.05023 t 1.03627 u 1.2967 v 1.77662 w 0.396003 x 13.7292 y 0.47566 z 3.78748 The numbers are (relative frequency in C) / (relative frequency in English). So "b" is slightly more common in C than English, but "w" is a lot more common in English than C. The raw counts for symbol characters: _ 22890057 , 10895692 ) 10749798 ( 10745839 * 9211904 ; 8187969 - 6628768 = 5878296 > 4428291 / 3468260 . 3011078 { 2212412 } 2211783 " 2120264 & 1647188 : 1032587 + 962554 # 909859 [ 889538 ] 888722 < 839910 | 643903 % 583092 ! 561462 \ 540456 ' 454201 @ 131199 ? 112488 ~ 84629 ^ 19064 $ 17922 ` 7272 [space] 74199965

dredmorbius 15y ago
What would be interesting here would be a difference analysis or regression giving the preference for any given key in a given language. E.g.: '|' is highly predictive of shell, '$' of perl, '()' for lisp. Might be fun to do in R.
- pwnguin 15y ago
  I really need to do reading and research on this, but I'm pretty sure that's what Hidden Markov Models are for. You could watch a webpage go from HTML to javascript and back!
zokier 15y ago
Could I ask for one more data: the total number of characters and maybe lines? That way symbol/alpha/line ratios could be compared to other languages.
- alextgordon 15y ago
  Yeah, when I get a chance I'll gather together some stats on all the languages I have data on (about 40). Finder reports 630,942,867 bytes for the whole directory. Assuming most files will be plain ASCII, that should give a good approximation for the total number of characters.
  - zokier 15y ago
    Based on those numbers I gathered some stats about keyboard layouts: * 18% of all characters are symbols, 12% are spaces and 70% are alphabetic * 20% of all non-space characters are symbols and 80% are alphabetic. * US kb layout users need to use shift for 64% of symbols * Finnish/Swedish kb layout users need to use shift for 73% of symbols and AltGr for 7% of symbols. * Fi/Swe layout users thus need to use 25% more modifer keys for symbols. Conclusion: Fi/Swe layout sucks. edit: https://gist.github.com/1205728 https://gist.github.com/1205728 python script used to get these numbers (percentages calculated with OOo Calc).
troxy 15y ago
Do you know why you have slightly different numbers of (){}[] characters? In C or C++ shouldn't those all be paired up to match?
- zeteo 15y ago
  It can probably be accounted for by comments (e.g. people sometimes comment out half a block). Although the comments should be left out, so as not to mix the C and the English.
  - alextgordon 15y ago
    Also string and character literals. It's common to write something like if (c == '{') and not need to test for the matching one.
zokier 15y ago
Heatmap for symbols only: http://i.imgur.com/yc6fe.png http://i.imgur.com/yc6fe.png

dredmorbius 15y ago

What would be interesting here would be a difference analysis or regression giving the preference for any given key in a given language. E.g.: '|' is highly predictive of shell, '$' of perl, '()' for lisp. Might be fun to do in R.

pwnguin 15y ago
I really need to do reading and research on this, but I'm pretty sure that's what Hidden Markov Models are for. You could watch a webpage go from HTML to javascript and back!

zokier 15y ago

Could I ask for one more data: the total number of characters and maybe lines? That way symbol/alpha/line ratios could be compared to other languages.

alextgordon 15y ago
Yeah, when I get a chance I'll gather together some stats on all the languages I have data on (about 40). Finder reports 630,942,867 bytes for the whole directory. Assuming most files will be plain ASCII, that should give a good approximation for the total number of characters.
- zokier 15y ago
  Based on those numbers I gathered some stats about keyboard layouts: * 18% of all characters are symbols, 12% are spaces and 70% are alphabetic * 20% of all non-space characters are symbols and 80% are alphabetic. * US kb layout users need to use shift for 64% of symbols * Finnish/Swedish kb layout users need to use shift for 73% of symbols and AltGr for 7% of symbols. * Fi/Swe layout users thus need to use 25% more modifer keys for symbols. Conclusion: Fi/Swe layout sucks. edit: https://gist.github.com/1205728 https://gist.github.com/1205728 python script used to get these numbers (percentages calculated with OOo Calc).

troxy 15y ago

Do you know why you have slightly different numbers of (){}[] characters? In C or C++ shouldn't those all be paired up to match?

zeteo 15y ago
It can probably be accounted for by comments (e.g. people sometimes comment out half a block). Although the comments should be left out, so as not to mix the C and the English.
- alextgordon 15y ago
  Also string and character literals. It's common to write something like if (c == '{') and not need to test for the matching one.

zokier 15y ago

Heatmap for symbols only: http://i.imgur.com/yc6fe.png http://i.imgur.com/yc6fe.png