#!/usr/bin/env python a = {} n = 2; for line in open("out2.txt"): for i in range(len(line) - n + 1): c = line[i : i + n]; if "\n" in c: break elif c in a: a[c] += 1 else: a[c] = 1 for key in sorted(a): print key + "\t" + str(a[key])