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

This version will quit looking when the count exceeds the number of items not yet counted.

It works without sorting the array.

Array.prototype.most= function(){
    var L= this.length, freq= [], unique= [], 
    tem, max= 1, index, count;
    while(L>= max){
        tem= this[--L];
        if(unique.indexOf(tem)== -1){
            unique.push(tem);
            index= -1, count= 0;
            while((index= this.indexOf(tem, index+1))!= -1){
                ++count;
            }
            if(count> max){
                freq= [tem];
                max= count;
            }
            else if(count== max) freq.push(tem);
        }
    }
    return [freq, max];
}

    //test
    var A= ["apples","oranges","oranges","oranges","bananas",
   "bananas","oranges","bananas"];
    alert(A.most()) // [oranges,4]

    A.push("bananas");
    alert(A.most()) // [bananas,oranges,4]