Count occurrences of character in String java program code with example

The common technical interview question in java is to count the occurrence of a specific word in the string but what if interviewer ask to count the total number of times each alphabet appears in the string . That the question, whose logic you need to think at that point of time and sadly there is no built in java method to give you the direct answer by passing the input string .

Read Also : Count number of words in the String with Example

So in order to be prepared for such type of questions I have shared the program code below .

Input string : "Alive is awesome"

Output : A=1,l=1,i=2,v=1,e=3, =2,s=2,a=1,w=1,o=1,m=1

Note : The result is case sensitive , it means uppercase and lowercase alphabet are treated as different.
for example , Please see above the alphabet which is texted in Red

Read Also : Find first Non-Repeated Character in the String

1. Pseudo code/Logic for Count occurrences of Character in String in Java

I will use HashMap to count occurrences of Character in String in java. It will have Character as key and its count occurrences as value. First we will convert the given string into char array.Then , we will traverse char array and increment its value by 1 for each Character present in the input string.

public class EachCharacterCountInString
{

 public static void main(String[] args)
    {
       characterCount("Alive is Awesome");
 
       characterCount("Java Hungry");
 
       characterCount("USA has 50 states");
    }

 static void characterCount(String inputString)
    {
        //Creating a HashMap, key :Character  value : occurrences as Integer
 
        HashMap<Character, Integer> eachCharCountMap = new HashMap<Character, Integer>();
 
        //Converting inputString to char array
 
        char[] charArray = inputString.toCharArray();
 
        //traversal of each Character of charArray
 
        for (char c : charArray)
        {
            if(eachCharCountMap.containsKey(c))
            {
                //If char is present in eachCharCountMap, increment count by 1
 
                eachCharCountMap.put(c, eachCharCountMap.get(c)+1);
            }
            else
            {
                //If char is not present in eachCharCountMap,
                //Putting this char to eachCharCountMap with 1 as it's initial value
 
                eachCharCountMap.put(c, 1);
            }
        }
 
        //Showing the eachCharCountMap
 
        System.out.println(eachCharCountMap);
    }
     
}

Output:

{ =2, A=1, a=1, s=2, e=3, v=1, w=1, i=2, l=1, m=1, o=1}
{ =1, a=2, r=1, u=1, v=1, g=1, H=1, y=1, J=1, n=1}
{ =3, 0=1, A=1, a=2, S=1, s=3, t=2, U=1, 5=1, e=1, h=1}

2. Pseudo code/Logic for Count occurrences of Character in String in Java (Without using HashMap)

* We store the input string in an character array (below z) .(We want to create a character array z without any duplicate alphabet )
* We start traversing the string in array z[i].
for i=0 to i<z.length

Store the character at index i that is z[i] in temporary variable ch
for z[i+1] to z.length
if ch is equals to the any element of the rest of the array characters
then move the cursor to next index and reduce the length of the string by 1
set s[k]=s[k+1] // deleting the alphabet which is already in array z
set j=i

* Create a new array of integers to store the count of total number of appearances of alphabets in the string (below t)

* Compare every element of string s with the every element of character array z
if both are equal then
increase count by 1
Add the final count value to the array t (which is used to store the final count of total number of occurrences of the alphabet in the string )

* Print the count of the alphabet

Read Also : Abstraction meaning explained in simple words

Demo :

count total number of times each alphabet appears in the string java program

Code :

public class  AlphabetFrequencyString {
    
  
    static int i,j,k,c=0,w;
    
    static char m;                      //we can only define static for variables and fns not for arrays
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Input string is : ");
        System.out.println("Alive is awesome");
        System.out.println("");
        System.out.println("");
        System.out.println("Output :");
        frequencycount("Alive is awesome");
    }
    
    
    static void frequencycount(String s)
    
    {
        
        char[] z=new char[s.length()];
        for(w=0;w<s.length();w++)
        z[w]=s.charAt(w);
        for(i=0;i<w;i++)
        {
            char ch=z[i];
            for(j=i+1;j<w;j++)
            {
                if(z[j]==ch)
                {
                    for(k=j;k<(w-1);k++)
                    z[k]=z[k+1];
                    w--;
                    j=i;
                }
            }
        }
        
        int[] t=new int[w];
        for(i=0;i<w;i++)
        {
            for(j=0,c=0;j<s.length();j++)
            {
                if(z[i]==s.charAt(j))
                c++;
            }
            t[i]=c ;
            System.out.print(z[i]+"="+c+",");
        }
    }
    
}