[FIXED] Most common character in a string

Issue

Write a function that takes a string consisting of alphabetic characters as input argument and returns the most common character. Ignore white spaces i.e. Do not count any white space as a character. Note that capitalization does not matter here i.e. that a lower case character is equal to a upper case character. In case of a tie between certain characters return the last character that has the most count

This is the updated code

def most_common_character (input_str):
    input_str = input_str.lower()
    new_string = "".join(input_str.split())
    print(new_string)
    length = len(new_string)
    print(length)
    count = 1
    j = 0
    higher_count = 0
    return_character = ""
    for i in range(0, len(new_string)):
        character = new_string[i]
        while (length - 1):
            if (character == new_string[j + 1]):
                count += 1
            j += 1
            length -= 1    
            if (higher_count < count):
                higher_count = count
    return (character)     

#Main Program
input_str = input("Enter a string: ")
result = most_common_character(input_str)
print(result)

The above is my code. I am getting an error of string index out of bound which I can't understand why. Also the code only checks the occurrence of first character I am confused about how to proceed to the next character and take the maximum count?

The error i get when I run my code:

> Your answer is NOT CORRECT Your code was tested with different inputs.
> For example when your function is called as shown below:
> 
> most_common_character ('The cosmos is infinite')
> 
> ############# Your function returns ############# e The returned variable type is: type 'str'
> 
> ######### Correct return value should be ######## i The returned variable type is: type 'str'
> 
> ####### Output of student print statements ###### thecosmosisinfinite 19

Solution

Actually your code is almost correct. You need to move count, j, length inside of your for i in range(0, len(new_string)) because you need to start over on each iteration and also if count is greater than higher_count, you need to save that charater as return_character and return it instead of character which is always last char of your string because of character = new_string[i].

I don't see why have you used j+1 and while length-1. After correcting them, it now covers tie situations aswell.

def most_common_character (input_str):
    input_str = input_str.lower()
    new_string = "".join(input_str.split())
    higher_count = 0
    return_character = ""

    for i in range(0, len(new_string)):
        count = 0
        length = len(new_string)
        j = 0
        character = new_string[i]
        while length > 0:
            if (character == new_string[j]):
                count += 1
            j += 1
            length -= 1    
            if (higher_count <= count):
                higher_count = count
                return_character = character
    return (return_character) 

Answered By - Lafexlos