import sys dict_char = {} with open(sys.argv[1], 'r') as f: for line in f: for c in line: if c not in dict_char.keys(): dict_char[c] = 1 else: dict_char[c] += 1 l = sorted( dict_char.items(), key = lambda key_val : (key_val[1], key_val[0]) , reverse=True) for items in l: print(str(items[0]) + ' '+str(items[1])) #print(dict_char)