🚀 go-pugleaf

I've got some real-world data on ASCII character frequencies that
might be of interest.  This is compiled from our Usenet news spool
area, and as you can see, it represents a very large sample; about
1.5 gigabytes. All 128 possible 7-bit ASCII character codes were
present in our spool area.  The frequencies for the common letters
agree pretty well with the usual published figures.  The characters
are shown below as both their hexadecimal value and their
conventional printed value (with ^ notataion for characters below
20 hex, and SP and DEL for the space and delete characters).

----------------------------------------------------------------

ASCII character frequencies compiled from spooled
Usenet news articles at eecs.umich.edu, October 1992

Total sample size:  1527985763 characters

 RANK  CHAR     FREQUENCY  FRACTION
    1  20  SP   201371828  0.131789073
    2  65  e     99878730  0.065366270
    3  74  t     69353427  0.045388791
    4  61  a     64864522  0.042450999
    5  6f  o     61987215  0.040567927
    6  6e  n     56407117  0.036915996
    7  73  s     56023035  0.036664632
    8  69  i     55254230  0.036161482
    9  72  r     49652127  0.032495150
   10  0a  ^J    34139419  0.022342760
   11  2e  .     34061805  0.022291965
   12  6c  l     32978036  0.021582685
   13  68  h     32377952  0.021189957
   14  63  c     31812877  0.020820140
   15  75  u     31084164  0.020343229
   16  64  d     29425902  0.019257969
   17  6d  m     24112009  0.015780258
   18  2d  -     20716713  0.013558185
   19  70  p     18495125  0.012104252
   20  67  g     17555107  0.011489051
   21  66  f     14974537  0.009800181
   22  79  y     14598622  0.009554161
   23  77  w     14227058  0.009310989
   24  3a  :     14138221  0.009252849
   25  31  1     13537996  0.008860028
   26  2c  ,     13086270  0.008564393
   27  62  b     12513051  0.008189246
   28  32  2     11884844  0.007778112
   29  30  0     11723363  0.007672429
   30  4d  M     11020109  0.007212180
   31  21  !     10759268  0.007041471
   32  3e  >     10732870  0.007024195
   33  49  I     10618889  0.006949599
   34  53  S      9999059  0.006543948
   35  39  9      9427896  0.006170146
   36  40  @      9331503  0.006107061
   37  41  A      9212598  0.006029243
   38  54  T      9014347  0.005899497
   39  28  (      8930436  0.005844581
   40  76  v      8690403  0.005687490
   41  44  D      8219753  0.005379470
   42  2a  *      7999581  0.005235377
   43  43  C      7779297  0.005091210
   44  29  )      7661910  0.005014386
   45  34  4      7644597  0.005003055
   46  22  "      7550235  0.004941299
   47  33  3      7490150  0.004901976
   48  45  E      7370977  0.004823983
   49  6b  k      7323066  0.004792627
   50  50  P      7322751  0.004792421
   51  4e  N      7221416  0.004726102
   52  35  5      7127572  0.004664685
   53  52  R      6904252  0.004518532
   54  38  8      6871704  0.004497230
   55  27  '      6644963  0.004348838
   56  42  B      6613096  0.004327983
   57  4f  O      6526125  0.004271064
   58  3d  =      6310179  0.004129737
   59  36  6      6232055  0.004078608
   60  48  H      6029984  0.003946361
   61  4c  L      6008646  0.003932397
   62  46  F      5991485  0.003921165
   63  37  7      5568773  0.003644519
   64  58  X      5429720  0.003553515
   65  55  U      5423045  0.003549146
   66  3c  <      5407105  0.003538714
   67  5f  _      5325740  0.003485464
   68  47  G      5221087  0.003416974
   69  24  $      5189319  0.003396183
   70  23  #      4829029  0.003160389
   71  57  W      4566922  0.002988851
   72  2f  /      4521261  0.002958968
   73  4a  J      4381774  0.002867680
   74  26  &      4228939  0.002767656
   75  25  %      4166579  0.002726844
   76  56  V      3945305  0.002582030
   77  59  Y      3927449  0.002570344
   78  4b  K      3861071  0.002526902
   79  2b  +      3844422  0.002516006
   80  51  Q      3781516  0.002474837
   81  3f  ?      3717410  0.002432883
   82  3b  ;      3526268  0.002307789
   83  09  ^I     3434741  0.002247888
   84  60  `      3365891  0.002202829
   85  5a  Z      3144238  0.002057767
   86  5c  \      3080333  0.002015944
   87  78  x      2951037  0.001931325
   88  5e  ^      2899235  0.001897423
   89  5b  [      2854748  0.001868308
   90  5d  ]      2747160  0.001797896
   91  6a  j      2270531  0.001485963
   92  7a  z      1990641  0.001302788
   93  7c  |      1252155  0.000819481
   94  71  q      1181989  0.000773560
   95  7e  ~       514997  0.000337043
   96  7d  }       252580  0.000165303
   97  7b  {       191876  0.000125574
   98  00  ^@       81178  0.000053127
   99  08  ^H       39159  0.000025628
  100  01  ^A       12660  0.000008285
  101  0c  ^L        7566  0.000004952
  102  1a  ^Z        5569  0.000003645
  103  0d  ^M        5389  0.000003527
  104  02  ^B        3209  0.000002100
  105  1b  ^[        2897  0.000001896
  106  03  ^C        1585  0.000001037
  107  7f  DEL       1087  0.000000711
  108  0b  ^K        1086  0.000000711
  109  10  ^P         942  0.000000616
  110  07  ^G         920  0.000000602
  111  14  ^T         893  0.000000584
  112  05  ^E         838  0.000000548
  113  17  ^W         808  0.000000529
  114  04  ^D         788  0.000000516
  115  1e  ^^         703  0.000000460
  116  1c  ^\         687  0.000000450
  117  06  ^F         640  0.000000419
  118  0e  ^N         623  0.000000408
  119  13  ^S         609  0.000000399
  120  19  ^Y         577  0.000000378
  121  18  ^X         551  0.000000361
  122  15  ^U         525  0.000000344
  123  0f  ^O         524  0.000000343
  124  16  ^V         515  0.000000337
  125  1f  ^_         500  0.000000327
  126  1d  ^]         489  0.000000320
  127  11  ^Q         448  0.000000293
  128  12  ^R         438  0.000000287

-- Don Winsor
-- don@eecs.umich.edu