C - Find most frequent element in char array - c

Question

i'm developing a little function to display the most frequent character in a (char) array.
This is what I've accomplished so far, but I think i'm on the wrong way.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
char test[10] = "ciaociaoci";
max_caratt(test, 10);
}
int max_caratt(char input[], int size)
{
int i;
char max[300];
max[0] = input[0];
for (i=0; i<size; i++)
{
if(strncmp(input,input[i],1) == 1)
{
printf("occourrence found");
max[i] = input[i];
}
}
}
Any help?

Answer 1

Actually, the correct code is this.
It's just a corrected version of IntermediateHacker's below snippet.
void main()
{
int array[255] = {0}; // initialize all elements to 0
char str[] = "thequickbrownfoxjumpedoverthelazydog";
int i, max, index;
for(i = 0; str[i] != 0; i++)
{
++array[str[i]];
}
// Find the letter that was used the most
max = array[0];
index = 0;
for(i = 0; str[i] != 0; i++)
{
if( array[str[i]] > max)
{
max = array[str[i]];
index = i;
}
}
printf("The max character is: %c \n", str[index]);
}

Answer 2

The easiest way to find the most common character is to create an int array of 255 and just increment the arraly element that corresponds to the character. For example: if the charcter is 'A', then increment the 'A'th element (if you look at any ascii table you will see that the letter 'A' has a decimal value of 65)
int array[255] = {0}; // initialize all elements to 0
char str[] = "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.";
int i, max, index;
// Now count all the letters in the sentence
for(i = 0; str[i] != 0; i++)
{
++array[str[i]];
}
// Find the letter that was used the most
max = array[0];
index = 0;
for(i = 0; str[i] != 0; i++)
{
if( array[i] > max)
{
max = array[i];
index = i;
}
}
printf("The max character is: %c \n", (char)index);

Answer 3

You're passing a (almost) string and a char to strncmp(). strncmp() takes two strings (and an integer). Your program shouldn't even compile!
Suggestion: increase the warning level of your compiler and mind the warnings.
You may want to look at strchr() ...

Answer 4

Assuming an input array of 0-127, the following should get you the most common character in a single pass through the string. Note, if you want to worry about negative numbers, shift everything up by +127 as needed...
char mostCommonChar(char *str) {
/* we are making the assumption that the string passed in has values
* between 0 and 127.
*/
int cnt[128], max = 0;
char *idx = str;
/* clear counts */
memset((void *)cnt, 0, sizeof(int) * 128);
/* collect info */
while(*idx) {
cnt[*idx]++;
if(cnt[*idx] > cnt[max]) {
max = *idx;
}
idx++;
}
/* we know the max */
return max;
}

Answer 5

If you don't need to preserve the input array, you could sort the input array first, then find the longest contiguous run of a single character. This approach is slower, but uses less space.

Answer 6

I made a working version using structs. It works fine, I guess, but I think there's a MUCH better way to write this algorithm.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
struct alphabet {
char letter;
int times;
};
typedef struct alphabet Alphabet;
void main() {
char string[300];
gets(string);
Alphabet Alph[300];
int i=0, j=0;
while (i<=strlen(string)) {
while(j<=300) {
if(string[i] != Alph[j].letter) {
Alph[i].letter = string[i];
Alph[i].times = 1;
}
else {
Alph[j].times++;
}
j++;
}
j=0;
i++;
}
int y,max=0;
char letter_max[0];
for (y=0; y<strlen(string); y++) {
printf("Letter: %c, Times: %d \n", Alph[y].letter, Alph[y].times);
if(Alph[y].times>max) {
max=Alph[y].times;
letter_max[0]=Alph[y].letter;
}
}
printf("\n\n\t\tMost frequent letter: %c - %d times \n\n", letter_max[0], max);
}

Answer 7

I saw you all creating big arrays and "complex" stuff so here I have easy and simple code xD
char most_used_char (char s[]) {
int i; //array's index
int v; //auxiliary index for counting characters
char c_aux; //auxiliary character
int sum = 0; //auxiliary character's occurrence
char c_max; //most used character
int max = 0; //most used character's occurrence
for (i = 0; s[i]; i++) {
c_aux = s[i];
for (v = 0; s[v]; v++)
if (c_aux == s[v]) sum++; /* responsible cycle for counting
character occurrence */
if (sum > max) { //checks if new character is the most used
max = sum;
c_max = c_aux;
}
sum = 0; /* reset counting variable so it can counts new
characters occurrence */
}
return c_max; //this is the most used character!
}