LINQ return max & min occurrence of word from List<string>

Question

List<string> data = new List<string>();
            data.Add("Hold");
            data.Add("Hold");
            data.Add("Buy");
            data.Add("Buy");
            data.Add("Hold");

            var g = data.GroupBy(i => i);
            foreach (var grp in g)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", grp.Key, grp.Count());
            }

I have done the job this way but i want to return max & min occurrence of the word from the list of word using LINQ.

what will happen if two word has same number of occurrence....then which word name will be returned?

please share right LINQ query. thanks

Answer 1

Hi @T.Zacks ,

If you mean that you only want two words/counts, the one that has the max occurrence and the one that has the min occurrence, then maybe you want something like this:

var result =  
(  
        data.GroupBy(item => item)  
        .Select(itemGroup => new { Item = itemGroup.Key, Count = itemGroup.Count() })  
        .OrderByDescending(Item => Item.Count).ThenBy(Item => Item.Item)  
).ToList();   
  
Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}\r\n{2} {3}", result.First().Item, result.First().Count, result.Last().Item, result.Last().Count);  

Note that I have used OrderByDescending for the Count, so it will show max first, and ThenBy, which will return the Item alphabetically if the Counts are the same.

I hope that this is what you're asking for. =0)

---

~~Bonnie DeWitt [MVP since 2003]
http://geek-goddess-bonnie.blogspot.com

Answer 2

This will provide the count

List<string> list = new List<string>
{
    "Hold",
    "Hold",
    "Buy",
    "Buy",
    "Hold"
};

var result = (from item in list
    group item by item into itemGroup
    select $"{itemGroup.Key} - {itemGroup.Count()}");

Then we have

List<string> list = new List<string>
{
    "Hold",
    "Hold",
    "Buy",
    "Buy",
    "Hold"
};

var result = 
(
    list.GroupBy(item => item).Select(itemGroup => new { Item = itemGroup.Key, Count = itemGroup.Count() })
 ).ToList();

foreach (var item in result)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{item.Item} - {item.Count}");
}

Answer 3

The default order is related to the order you add to the List.

You can customize the sorting rules when sorting, such as sorting by first letter(based on Karen's code):

            var re = result.OrderBy(da => da.Count).ThenBy(da=>da.Item);  

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