Searching an array list for most common String

Question

I was wondering how I could search an ArrayList of Strings to find the most commonly occurring 'destination' in an 'Itinerary' object I've created (which contains a list of different destinations.)

So far I have:

public static String commonName(ArrayList<Itinerary> itinerary){

    int count = 0;
    int total = 0;

    ArrayList<String> names = new ArrayList<String>();
    Iterator<String>itr2 = names.iterator();

    while(itr.hasNext()){ 

        Itinerary temp = itr.next();  

        if(temp.iterator().hasNext()){ //if its has destinations

                // Destination object in itinerary object 
                Destination temp2 = temp.iterator().next(); 
                String name = temp2.getDestination().toLowerCase().replace(" ", "");

                if(names.contains(name)){
                    count = count + 1;
                    //do something with counting the occurence of string name here
                }

I'm having problems making an algorithm to search the array for the most commonly occurring string, or strings if there is a tie; and then displaying the number of the 'Itinerary object' (the parameter value) the string is found in. Any help would be great, thank you!!

Answer 1

I would make a HashMap<String,Integer>. Then I would go through each itinerary, and if the destination wans't in the Map I would create an entry with put(destination, 1), otherwise I would increment the count that was there with put(destination, get(destination)+1). Afterwards I'd go through the Map entries and look for the one with the highest count.