Common characters

Computer Science Level 3

How many times does the most common character in this file appear?

Click here to open the file.


The answer is 26.

Maryann Vellanikaran by Maryann Vellanikaran , 36, USA

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4 solutions

Use a dictionary to keep track of character counts. Use the character as the dictionary key, and the character count incidence as the dictionary value.

Iterate through the file, reading the characters as you go. For each character, increment its count in the dictionary. When you reach the end of the file, find the maximum value stored in the dictionary.

* Python solution: * 

# open the file and initialize the dictionary
f = open('cs_commonchar.txt', 'r') 
chars = {}

# for each character in the file, see if it is already in the dictionary
# if it is in the dictionary, increment its count
# if it is not in the dictionary, add it to the dictionary and set its count to 1
for c in f.read():
    if c in chars:
        chars[c] += 1
    else:
        chars[c] = 1

f.close() # close the file, we are done with it

# print the maximum value in the dictionary
print max(chars.values())
3 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency 'e' is the most common character in English Language...

Shabbir Haider - 6 years, 5 months ago 
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#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

int main(){
    string str;
    long long R[99],max=0;

    memset(R,0,sizeof R);
    cin>>str;

    for(int coy=0;coy<str.length();coy++){       
        switch(str[coy]){
            case 'a':
                R[0]++;
            break;
            case 'b':
                R[1]++;
            break;
            case 'c':
                R[2]++;
            break;
            case 'd':
                R[3]++;
            break;
            case 'e':
                R[4]++;
            break;
            case 'f':
                R[5]++;
            break;
            case 'g':
                R[6]++;
            break;
            case 'h':
                R[7]++;
            break;
            case 'i':
                R[8]++;
            break;
            case 'j':
                R[9]++;
            break;
            case 'k':
                R[10]++;
            break;
            case 'l':
                R[11]++;
            break;
            case 'm':
                R[12]++;
            break;
            case 'n':
                R[13]++;
            break;
            case 'o':
                R[14]++;
            break;
            case 'p':
                R[15]++;
            break;
            case 'q':
                R[16]++;
            break;
            case 'r':
                R[17]++;
            break;
            case 's':
                R[18]++;
            break;
            case 't':
                R[19]++;
            break;
            case 'u':
                R[20]++;
            break;
            case 'v':
                R[21]++;
            break;
            case 'w':
                R[22]++;
            break;
            case 'x':
                R[23]++;
            break;
            case 'y':
                R[24]++;
            break;
            case 'z':
                R[25]++;
            break;
            case 'A':
                R[26]++;
            break;
            case 'B':
                R[27]++;
            break;
            case 'C':
                R[28]++;
            break;
            case 'D':
                R[29]++;
            break;
            case 'E':
                R[30]++;
            break;
            case 'F':
                R[31]++;
            break;
            case 'G':
                R[32]++;
            break;
            case 'H':
                R[33]++;
            break;
            case 'I':
                R[34]++;
            break;
            case 'J':
                R[35]++;
            break;
            case 'K':
                R[36]++;
            break;
            case 'L':
                R[37]++;
            break;
            case 'M':
                R[38]++;
            break;
            case 'N':
                R[39]++;
            break;
            case 'O':
                R[40]++;
            break;
            case 'P':
                R[41]++;
            break;
            case 'Q':
                R[42]++;
            break;
            case 'R':
                R[43]++;
            break;
            case 'S':
                R[44]++;
            break;
            case 'T':
                R[45]++;
            break;
            case 'U':
                R[46]++;
            break;
            case 'V':
                R[47]++;
            break;
            case 'W':
                R[48]++;
            break;
            case 'X':
                R[49]++;
            break;
            case 'Y':
                R[50]++;
            break;
            case 'Z':
                R[51]++;
            break;
            case '0':
                R[52]++;
            break;
            case '1':
                R[53]++;
            break;
            case '2':
                R[54]++;
            break;
            case '3':
                R[55]++;
            break;
            case '4':
                R[56]++;
            break;
            case '5':
                R[57]++;
            break;
            case '6':
                R[58]++;
            break;
            case '7':
                R[59]++;
            break;
            case '8':
                R[60]++;
            break;
            case '9':
                R[61]++;
            break;
        }
    }

    for(int i=0;i<62;i++) if(R[i]>max) max=R[i];

    cout<<max<<endl;    

}

Output

26

2 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused
Masbahul Islam
Mar 2, 2016

0 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused
Bill Bell
Jul 19, 2015

0 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

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