Workshop › Text detective › Step 9 of 13

The most common word

What we are doing

The detective's finding: the word used most. We turn the map into a list, sort it by count and take the first.

```js
const top = [...counts].sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1])[0]

(top ? '\nMost common: ' + top[0] + ' (' + top[1] + ')' : '')
```

What it means

• [...counts] is a list of [word, count] pairs.
• sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1]) sorts by count, biggest first. [0] takes the first pair.
• An empty text has no pairs, so top is undefined and nothing is added.

Your turn

1. After the loop, write the top line.
2. Add the Most common part to the end of the report, as shown.

Skills: Arrays and objects, Functions

← Drop the punctuation Shift a letter →

All steps

1. Read the text
2. Count the characters
3. Update as you type
4. Split into words
5. The extra-space trap
6. An empty box has no words
7. Count each word
8. Drop the punctuation
9. The most common word
10. Shift a letter
11. Encode a whole text
12. The secret line
13. Build it yourself: crack the code