Write a mode method in Java to find the most frequently occurring element in an array

Question

The question goes:

Write a method called mode that returns the most frequently occurring element of an array of integers. Assume that the array has at le

Answer 1

You should use a hashmap for such problems. it will take O(n) time to enter each element into the hashmap and o(1) to retrieve the element. In the given code, I am basically taking a global max and comparing it with the value received on 'get' from the hashmap, each time I am entering an element into it, have a look:

hashmap has two parts, one is the key, the second is the value when you do a get operation on the key, its value is returned.

public static int mode(int []array)
{
    HashMap<Integer,Integer> hm = new HashMap<Integer,Integer>();
    int max  = 1;
    int temp = 0;

    for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {

        if (hm.get(array[i]) != null) {

            int count = hm.get(array[i]);
            count++;
            hm.put(array[i], count);

            if(count > max) {
                max  = count;
                temp = array[i];
            }
        }

        else 
            hm.put(array[i],1);
    }
    return temp;
}

Answer 2

Here is my answer.

public static int mode(int[] arr) {
    int max = 0;
    int maxFreq = 0;

    Arrays.sort(arr);
    max = arr[arr.length-1];

    int[] count = new int[max + 1];

    for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
        count[arr[i]]++;
    }

     for (int i = 0; i < count.length; i++) {
        if (count[i] > maxFreq) {
            maxFreq = count[i];
        }
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < count.length; i++) {
        if (count[i] == maxFreq) {
            return i;
        }
    }
    return -1;
}