, , numpy:
def most_common(a, n=1) :
if a.dtype.kind not in 'bui':
items, _ = np.unique(a, return_inverse=True)
else:
items, _ = None, a
counts = np.bincount(_)
idx = np.argsort(counts)[::-1][:n]
return idx.astype(a.dtype) if items is None else items[idx]
>>> a = np.fromiter('abracadabra', dtype='S1')
>>> most_common(a, 2)
array(['a', 'r'],
dtype='|S1')
>>> a = np.random.randint(10, size=100)
>>> a
array([0, 0, 0, 9, 3, 9, 1, 2, 6, 3, 0, 4, 3, 2, 4, 7, 2, 8, 8, 2, 9, 7, 0,
3, 5, 2, 5, 0, 4, 2, 4, 7, 8, 5, 4, 0, 1, 6, 1, 0, 2, 0, 5, 1, 3, 8,
8, 6, 3, 5, 4, 3, 3, 5, 0, 7, 3, 0, 2, 5, 4, 2, 4, 2, 8, 1, 4, 4, 7,
4, 4, 3, 7, 4, 0, 1, 0, 8, 8, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 2, 5, 1, 0, 7, 2, 0, 0,
0, 8, 9, 9, 8, 1, 3, 8])
>>> most_common(a, 5)
array([0, 4, 2, 8, 3])