Python: Counting characters and displaying them in alphabetical order?

So I have to program something in Python that takes a string that's 20 characters or more, count how often each character comes up, and display the count in Alphabetical order with caps and lowercase letters mixed (A-a-B-b-C-c).

The phrase I'm testing is "She sells sea shells down by the seashore" which should display as: {' ': 7, 'a': 2, 'b': 1, 'd': 1, 'e': 7, 'h': 4, 'l': 4, 'n': 1, 'o': 2, 'r': 1, 'S': 1, 's': 7, 't': 1, 'w': 1, 'y': 1}

However, I can't figure out how to get it to count and sort out the way I want it. Here is what I tried.

#This first one sorted and counted it alphabetically, however the uppercase and lowercase letters didn't stay together.

def main():
    input_str = str(input("Please enter a phrase:\n"))
    if len(input_str) < 20:
        print("Please enter a phrase that's 20 characters or more.")
    else:
        res = {}
        for keys in sorted(input_str):
            res[keys]=res.get(keys,0)+1
        print("Count of all characters in inputed phrase is:\n"+ str(res))

        
main()
Please enter a phrase:
She sells sea shells down by the seashore
Count of all characters in inputed phrase is:
{' ': 7, 'S': 1, 'a': 2, 'b': 1, 'd': 1, 'e': 7, 'h': 4, 'l': 4, 'n': 1, 'o': 2, 'r': 1, 's': 7, 't': 1, 'w': 1, 'y': 1}

#This second one I saw the lambda command and thought it would fix it, however it doesn't actually count the letters, it just displays them in alphabetical order

def main():
    input_str = str(input("Please enter a phrase:\n"))
    if len(input_str) < 20:
        print("Please enter a phrase that's 20 characters or more.")
    else:
        sorted_list = sorted(input_str , key = lambda s: (s.upper(),s))
        print("Count of all characters in inputed phrase is:\n", sorted_list)

        
main()
Please enter a phrase:
She sells sea shells down by the seashore
Count of all characters in inputed phrase is:
 [' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ', 'a', 'a', 'b', 'd', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'e', 'h', 'h', 'h', 'h', 'l', 'l', 'l', 'l', 'n', 'o', 'o', 'r', 'S', 's', 's', 's', 's', 's', 's', 's', 't', 'w', 'y']

How do I combine these so that it will count and sort them the way I want? Or am I going about this the wrong way?

Solution

The lambda itself couldn't fix it, because it's not giving you the counts. It only helps to sort the characters in the input string. Once you have that list of sorted characters you can use e.g. a dict comprehension to assign counts to each character and then print it:

def main():
    input_str = input("Please enter a phrase:\n")
    if len(input_str) < 20:
        print("Please enter a phrase that's 20 characters or more.")
    else:
        sorted_list = sorted(input_str , key = lambda s: (s.upper(),s))
        character_counts = {item: input_str.count(item) for item in sorted_list}
        print(f"Count of all characters in inputed phrase is:\n{character_counts}")

# Input:
# oasjdoasdjoasdjasodjasopdnaosdn
# Output:
#  {'a': 6, 'd': 6, 'j': 4, 'n': 2, 'o': 6, 'p': 1, 's': 6}

Side notes:

f-string is a newer way of formatting strings
input returns a string by default, no need to explicitly cast it
passing a lambda to sorting functions is just a convention and is often convenient, but it's not a "must do". You can pass any named function as well, since that key parameter is actually "how do you want me to sort the iterable" e.g.

# Define function
def get_upper_and_non_modified_char(c: str)->Tuple[str, str]:
    return s.upper(), s
...
...
...
# Use it for sorting instead of lambda
sorted_list = sorted(input_str , key = get_upper_and_non_modified_char)