Question

I’m trying to write a java method which finds all the modes in an array. I know there is a simple method to find the mode in an array but when there are more than one single mode my method outputs only one of them. I’ve tried to find a way but am nit sure how to approach this problem. Can anyone help me out to find all the modes in the array? Thanks.

Yes here is my code which outputs only one mode even if multiple modes exist.

public static int mode(int a[]){
  int maxValue=0, maxCount=0;   
  for (int i = 0; i < a.length; ++i){
    int count = 0;
    for (int j = 0; j < a.length; ++j){
      if (a[j] == a[i]) ++count;
    }
    if (count > maxCount){
      maxCount = count;
      maxValue = a[i];
    }
  }
  return maxValue;
}

okay here’s an example:
30
30
30
34
34
23

In this set of numbers there is only one mode, which is 30.

30
30
30
34
34
34
23

But in this set there are two modes, 30 and 34. I want my code to be able to output both of them, whereas it only prints one. It prints only 30.

Answer 1

The following code will return you an Integer[] containing the modes. If you need an int[] instead, you still need to convert the Integer instances to ints manually. Probably not the most efficient version, but its matches closely to your code

public static Integer[] mode(int a[]){
  List<Integer> modes = new ArrayList<Integer>(  );
  int maxCount=0;   
  for (int i = 0; i < a.length; ++i){
    int count = 0;
    for (int j = 0; j < a.length; ++j){
      if (a[j] == a[i]) ++count;
    }
    if (count > maxCount){
      maxCount = count;
      modes.clear();
      modes.add( a[i] );
    } else if ( count == maxCount ){
      modes.add( a[i] );
    }
  }
  return modes.toArray( new Integer[modes.size()] );
}