Introduction

Here we will create a simple example to count each character to find out how many times each character repeats in the string. A string can have unique characters as well repeated characters. A string can also have only unique characters in it.

Let’s say, you are given a string input, for example, “Hello World!”. Your output should be, how many times each character is showing up in the string. So, in this example, the output should be, H: 1 e: 1 l: 3 o: 2.

Prerequisites

Java, Eclipse

Counting Characters in String

We will create the following method to count characters in a string. We will put each character as a key in HashMap and increment it’s counter as a value for the repeated characters.

public static Map<String, Integer> countChars(final String str) {
	Map<String, Integer> cMap = new HashMap<>();
	for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
		String s = str.substring(i, i + 1);
		if (s == null || " ".equals(s)) {
			continue;
		}
		if (cMap.get(s) != null) {
			cMap.put(s, cMap.get(s) + 1);
		} else {
			cMap.put(s, 1);
		}
	}
	return cMap;
}

Testing the Program

To test the above program create a main method and pass a string as an argument.

public static void main(String[] args) {
	Map<String, Integer> cMap = countChars("Hello World");
	cMap.forEach((k, v) -> System.out.println(k + " => " + v));
}

The above main method will give you below output:

r => 1
d => 1
e => 1
W => 1
H => 1
l => 3
o => 2

Maintain Order of the Characters

If you want to maintain order of the characters counts while retrieving from the Map then you can use LinkedHashMap.

Simple replace the line:

Map<String, Integer> cMap = new HashMap<>();

By

Map<String, Integer> cMap = new LinkedHashMap<>();

The output will be in the order as string:

H => 1
e => 1
l => 3
o => 2
W => 1
r => 1
d => 1

Source Code

Download

Thanks for reading.