seta = set(a)
b = [a.count(el) for el in seta]
a = list(seta) #Only if you really want it.

计算元素的频率可能最好使用字典:

b = {}
for item in a:
    b[item] = b.get(item, 0) + 1

要删除重复项，请使用set:

a = list(set(a))

def frequencyDistribution(data):
    return {i: data.count(i) for i in data}   

print frequencyDistribution([1,2,3,4])

...

 {1: 1, 2: 1, 3: 1, 4: 1}   # originalNumber: count

如果列表是排序的，你可以使用itertools标准库中的groupby(如果不是，你可以先排序，尽管这需要O(nlgn)时间):

from itertools import groupby

a = [5, 1, 2, 2, 4, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 5, 2]
[len(list(group)) for key, group in groupby(sorted(a))]

输出:

[4, 4, 2, 1, 2]

#!usr/bin/python
def frq(words):
    freq = {}
    for w in words:
            if w in freq:
                    freq[w] = freq.get(w)+1
            else:
                    freq[w] =1
    return freq

fp = open("poem","r")
list = fp.read()
fp.close()
input = list.split()
print input
d = frq(input)
print "frequency of input\n: "
print d
fp1 = open("output.txt","w+")
for k,v in d.items():
fp1.write(str(k)+':'+str(v)+"\n")
fp1.close()

这个答案更加明确

a = [1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,4,4]

d = {}
for item in a:
    if item in d:
        d[item] = d.get(item)+1
    else:
        d[item] = 1

for k,v in d.items():
    print(str(k)+':'+str(v))

# output
#1:4
#2:4
#3:3
#4:2

#remove dups
d = set(a)
print(d)
#{1, 2, 3, 4}