Get the item that appears the most times in an array

Question

var store = [\'1\',\'2\',\'2\',\'3\',\'4\'];

I want to find out that 2 appear the most in the array. How do I go about doing that?

Answer 1

Make a histogram, find the key for the maximum number in the histogram.

var hist = [];
for (var i = 0; i < store.length; i++) {
  var n = store[i];
  if (hist[n] === undefined) hist[n] = 0;
  else hist[n]++;
}

var best_count = hist[store[0]];
var best = store[0];
for (var i = 0; i < store.length; i++) {
  if (hist[store[i]] > best_count) {
    best_count = hist[store[i]];
    best = store[i];
  }
}

alert(best + ' occurs the most at ' + best_count + ' occurrences');

This assumes either there are no ties, or you don't care which is selected.