Patent ID: 7249125

Claim:
A method for automatically determining at least one modal value of non-numeric data, the method comprising: selecting a data subset from a dataset, the data subset comprising at least a portion of the dataset and including at least one non-numeric value; sorting the selected data subset by said at least one non-numeric value; processing the sorted data subset to identify one or more modal groups, each modal group including one or more instances of a substantially identical value; determining a modal count for each modal group, each modal count including a number of instances of the substantially identical value in the associated modal group; determining a highest one or more modal counts; determining at least one modal value based, at least in part, on the one or more modal groups, wherein said determining at least one modal value includes: selecting the substantially identical value from each modal group associated with the highest modal count, and assigning each selected substantially identical value to a modal value; and outputting the at least one modal value.