Most Frequent Character | Dataford Interview Questions

Find the most frequently occurring character from a list of strings.

Implement most_frequent_character(strings) to count every character across all strings, treating uppercase and lowercase characters as distinct. Return the character with the highest frequency. If multiple characters tie, return the lexicographically smallest character. The input contains at least one character in total, and spaces and punctuation are valid characters.

Constraints

1 <= len(strings) <= 10^4
1 <= sum(len(s) for s in strings) <= 10^5
Characters may include letters, digits, spaces, and punctuation
Matching is case-sensitive

Function Signature

def most_frequent_character(strings):

Your question is Most Frequent Character. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.

Problem

Find the most frequently occurring character from a list of strings.

Constraints

1 <= len(strings) <= 10^4
1 <= sum(len(s) for s in strings) <= 10^5
Characters may include letters, digits, spaces, and punctuation
Matching is case-sensitive

Function Signature

def most_frequent_character(strings):

Your question is Most Frequent Character. Start with the requirements in the Question tab.

Run and submit as often as you like. When you're ready, talk me through your approach or go straight to the code.