In numpy >= 1.8, you can also use the at
method of the addition ‘universal function’ (‘ufunc’). As the docs note:
For addition ufunc, this method is equivalent to a[indices] += b, except that results are accumulated for elements that are indexed more than once.
So taking your example:
a = np.zeros(6).astype('int')
b = [3, 2, 5, 2]
…to then…
np.add.at(a, b, 1)
…will leave a
as…
array([0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 1])