incrementing hash map count in Kotlin - kotlin

Question

I have the function below. However, when I pass a string to it, I get the following error:
error: operator call corresponds to a dot-qualified call 'charCountMap.get(c).plus(1)' which is not allowed on a nullable receiver 'charCountMap.get(c)'. charCountMap.put(c, charCountMap.get(c) + 1)
private fun characterCount(inputString:String) {
val charCountMap = HashMap<Char, Int>()
val strArray = inputString.toCharArray()
for (c in strArray)
{
if (charCountMap.containsKey(c))
{
charCountMap.put(c, charCountMap.get(c) + 1)
}
else
{
charCountMap.put(c, 1)
}
}
}

Answer 1

The Kotlin Standard Library has groupingBy and eachCount for this purpose, you don't need to do any of this manually:
private fun characterCount(inputString:String) {
val charCountMap : Map<Char, Int> = inputString.groupingBy { it }.eachCount()
}
Note that I put the type on charCountMap for clarity, but it can be left off and inferred.

Answer 2

There is nice compute method in HashMap for this:
private fun characterCount(inputString:String) = hashMapOf<Char, Int>().also { charCountMap ->
inputString.forEach { charCountMap.compute(it) { _, v -> if (v == null) 1 else v + 1 } }
}

Answer 3

Both the other answers are correct. Todd's answer is right, you don't need to write a function for this. Just use the standard library. And if you are going to write a function that updates maps, Михаил Нафталь's suggestion to use compute() to handle updating existing values is also good.
However, if you're just doing this an an exercise, here are three suggestions to fix/improve your algorithm:
Instead of get(), use getValue(), which does not return null. It will raise an exception if the element does not exist, but you already checked for that.
Use the [] operator instead of put() (no need to, it's just nicer syntax).
You don't need to call toCharArray() because Strings are already iterable.
if (charCountMap.containsKey(c))
{
charCountMap[c] = charCountMap.getValue(c) + 1
}
else
{
charCountMap[c] = 1
}
Rewriting the whole thing using standard formatting:
fun characterCount(inputString: String): Map<Char, Int> {
val charCountMap = mutableMapOf<Char, Int>()
for (c in inputString) {
if (charCountMap.containsKey(c)) {
charCountMap[c] = charCountMap.getValue(c) + 1
} else {
charCountMap[c] = 1
}
}
return charCountMap
}