Find the most common String in ArrayList()

Question

Is there a way to find the most common String in an ArrayList?

ArrayList list = new ArrayList<>();
list.add(\"t         


        

Answer 1

There are a lot of answers suggesting HashMaps. I really don't like them, because you have to iterate through them once again anyway. Rather, I would sort the List

Collections.sort(list);

and then loop through it. Something similar to

String prev = null, mostCommon=null;
int num = 0, max = 0;
for (String str:list) {
  if (str.equals(prev)) {
    num++;
  } else {
    if (num>max) {
      max = num;
      mostCommon = str;
    }
    num = 1;
    prev = str;
  }
}

should do it.