NamesList | Topcoder Archive

Problem Statement

You are working on setting up a new filing system, and need to know which k-th letter occurs most frequently among the names of your clients. Given String[] names, each element of which contains the name of a client, and int k, the 1-based index of the character to examine, return a String indicating the k-th letter that appears most often. Ignore any names containing less than k characters. If multiple k-th letters appear the same number of times, return the one among them that comes first alphabetically.

Definition

Class:: NamesList
Method:: popularInitial
Parameters:: String[], int
Returns:: String
Method signature:: String popularInitial(String[] names, int k)
(be sure your method is public)

Constraints

names will contain between 1 and 50 elements, inclusive.
Each element of names will contain between 1 and 50 uppercase letters ('A'-'Z'), inclusive.
k will be between 1 and 50, inclusive.
At least one element of names will contain at least k characters.

Examples

```
{"ANNE", "BILL", "BOB"}
```
```
1
```
```
Returns: "B"
```
Here, we just want the first character. There is 1 'A' and 2 'B's.
```
{"ANNE", "BILL", "WILL"}
```
```
2
```
```
Returns: "I"
```
Looking at the second character, we have 'N', 'I', 'I'.
```
{"ANN", "BOB", "JAMES"}
```
```
5
```
```
Returns: "S"
```
Only one name has five characters, and the fifth character is an 'S'.
```
{"STEVE"}
```
```
2
```
```
Returns: "T"
```
With only one name, this is pretty trivial.
```
{"JILL", "WILL", "CAL"}
```
```
3
```
```
Returns: "L"
```
All the same third letter.
```
{"ANN", "ALEX", "BOB", "BILL"}
```
```
1
```
```
Returns: "A"
```
Two 'A' and two 'B', so we break the tie by taking the earlier letter.

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