Print the most occurring character in an array of strings Last Updated : 02 Jan, 2023 Comments Improve Suggest changes Like Article Like Report Given an array arr[] of lowercase strings, the task is to print the most occurring character in the set of strings.Examples: Input: arr[] = {"animal", "zebra", "lion", "giraffe"} Output: a Explanation: The frequency of 'a' is 4 which is highest. Input: arr[] = {"aa", "bb", "cc", "bde"} Output: b Approach: The idea is to implement a hash data structure using an array of size 26. This array stores the count of each character from 'a' to 'z'. The following steps can be followed to compute the answer: Each string in the array is traversed.For every character in the string, its count is incremented by 1 in the hash.After all, strings are traversed, the maximum count of the character is checked and the character is printed. Below is the implementation of the above approach: CPP // C++ program to print the most occurring // character in an array of strings #include <bits/stdc++.h> using namespace std; // Function to print the most occurring character void findMostOccurringChar(vector<string> str) { // Creating a hash of size 26 int hash[26] = { 0 }; // For loop to iterate through // every string of the array for (int i = 0; i < str.size(); i++) { // For loop to iterate through // every character of the string for (int j = 0; j < str[i].length(); j++) { // Incrementing the count of // the character in the hash hash[str[i][j]]++; } } // Finding the character // with the maximum count int max = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) { max = hash[i] > hash[max] ? i : max; } cout << (char)(max + 97) << endl; } // Driver code int main() { // Declaring Vector of String type vector<string> str; str.push_back("animal"); str.push_back("zebra"); str.push_back("lion"); str.push_back("giraffe"); findMostOccurringChar(str); return 0; } Java // Java program to print the most occurring // character in an array of Strings import java.util.*; class GFG { // Function to print the most occurring character static void findMostOccurringChar(Vector<String> str) { // Creating a hash of size 26 int []hash = new int[26]; // For loop to iterate through // every String of the array for (int i = 0; i < str.size(); i++) { // For loop to iterate through // every character of the String for (int j = 0; j < str.get(i).length(); j++) { // Incrementing the count of // the character in the hash hash[str.get(i).charAt(j)-97]++; } } // Finding the character // with the maximum count int max = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) { max = hash[i] > hash[max] ? i : max; } System.out.print((char)(max + 97) +"\n"); } // Driver code public static void main(String[] args) { // Declaring Vector of String type Vector<String> str = new Vector<String>(); str.add("animal"); str.add("zebra"); str.add("lion"); str.add("giraffe"); findMostOccurringChar(str); } } // This code is contributed by PrinciRaj1992 Python3 # Python3 program to print the most occurring # character in an array of strings # Function to print the most occurring character def findMostOccurringChar(string) : # Creating a hash of size 26 hash = [0]*26; # For loop to iterate through # every string of the array for i in range(len(string)) : # For loop to iterate through # every character of the string for j in range(len(string[i])) : # Incrementing the count of # the character in the hash hash[ord(string[i][j]) - ord('a')] += 1; # Finding the character # with the maximum count max = 0; for i in range(26) : max = i if hash[i] > hash[max] else max; print((chr)(max + 97)); # Driver code if __name__ == "__main__" : # Declaring Vector of String type string = []; string.append("animal"); string.append("zebra"); string.append("lion"); string.append("giraffe"); findMostOccurringChar(string); # This code is contributed by AnkitRai01 C# // C# program to print the most occurring // character in an array of Strings using System; class GFG { // Function to print the most occurring character static void findMostOccurringChar(string []str) { // Creating a hash of size 26 int []hash = new int[26]; // For loop to iterate through // every String of the array for (int i = 0; i < str.Length; i++) { // For loop to iterate through // every character of the String for (int j = 0; j < str[i].Length; j++) { // Incrementing the count of // the character in the hash hash[str[i][j]-97]++; } } // Finding the character // with the maximum count int max = 0; for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) { max = hash[i] > hash[max] ? i : max; } Console.Write((char)(max + 97) +"\n"); } // Driver code public static void Main(String[] args) { // Declaring Vector of String type string []str = {"animal","zebra","lion","giraffe"}; findMostOccurringChar(str); } } // This code is contributed by AnkitRai01 JavaScript <script> // JavaScript program to print the most occurring // character in an array of strings // Function to print the most occurring character function findMostOccurringChar(str) { // Creating a hash of size 26 var hash = Array(26).fill(0); // For loop to iterate through // every string of the array for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) { // For loop to iterate through // every character of the string for (var j = 0; j < str[i].length; j++) { // Incrementing the count of // the character in the hash hash[str[i][j]]++; } } // Finding the character // with the maximum count var max = 0; for (var i = 0; i < 26; i++) { max = hash[i] > hash[max] ? i : max; } document.write(String.fromCharCode(max + 97)); } // Driver code // Declaring Vector of String type var str = []; str.push("animal"); str.push("zebra"); str.push("lion"); str.push("giraffe"); findMostOccurringChar(str); </script> Output: a Time Complexity: O(n * l), where n is the size of the given vector of strings and l is the maximum length of a string in the given vector.Auxiliary Space: O(26) ? O(1), no extra space is required, so it is a constant. Comment More infoAdvertise with us Next Article Print the most occurring character in an array of strings C code_r Follow Improve Article Tags : Strings Hash DSA Arrays Practice Tags : ArraysHashStrings Similar Reads Print all the duplicate characters in a string Given a string s, the task is to identify all characters that appear more than once and print each as a list containing the character and its count. Examples:Input: s = "geeksforgeeks"Output: ['e', 4], ['g', 2], ['k', 2], ['s', 2]Explanation: Characters e, g, k, and s appear more than once. 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