Build an ASCII chart of the most commonly used words in a given text

Language Agnostic Problem Overview

The challenge:

Build an ASCII chart of the most commonly used words in a given text.

The rules:

Only accept a-z and A-Z (alphabetic characters) as part of a word.
Ignore casing (She == she for our purpose).
Ignore the following words (quite arbitary, I know): the, and, of, to, a, i, it, in, or, is
Clarification: considering don't: this would be taken as 2 different 'words' in the ranges a-z and A-Z: (don and t).
Optionally (it's too late to be formally changing the specifications now) you may choose to drop all single-letter 'words' (this could potentially make for a shortening of the ignore list too).

Parse a given text (read a file specified via command line arguments or piped in; presume us-ascii) and build us a word frequency chart with the following characteristics:

Display the chart (also see the example below) for the 22 most common words (ordered by descending frequency).
The bar width represents the number of occurences (frequency) of the word (proportionally). Append one space and print the word.
Make sure these bars (plus space-word-space) always fit: bar + [space] + word + [space] should be always <= 80 characters (make sure you account for possible differing bar and word lengths: e.g.: the second most common word could be a lot longer then the first while not differing so much in frequency). Maximize bar width within these constraints and scale the bars appropriately (according to the frequencies they represent).

An example:

The text for the example can be found here (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll).

This specific text would yield the following chart:



|| she
|| you
|____| said
|| alice
|| was
|| that
|| as
|_________________| her
|| with
|____________________| at
|| s
|_______________________| t
|| on
|_______________________| all
|| this
|____________________| for
|| had
|| but
|| be
|| not
|_________________| they
|________________| so

For your information: these are the frequencies the above chart is built upon:

[('she', 553), ('you', 481), ('said', 462), ('alice', 403), ('was', 358), ('that
', 330), ('as', 274), ('her', 248), ('with', 227), ('at', 227), ('s', 219), ('t'
, 218), ('on', 204), ('all', 200), ('this', 181), ('for', 179), ('had', 178), ('
but', 175), ('be', 167), ('not', 166), ('they', 155), ('so', 152)]

A second example (to check if you implemented the complete spec): Replace every occurence of you in the linked Alice in Wonderland file with superlongstringstring:



|| she
|| superlongstringstring
|_| said
|| alice
|| was
|_____________________________| that
|| as
|_______________________| her
|| with
|_________________| at
|| s
|____________________| t
|| on
|| all
|_________________| this
|________| for
|___________| had
|| but
|| be
|| not
|| they
|________________| so

The winner:

Shortest solution (by character count, per language). Have fun!

Edit: Table summarizing the results so far (2012-02-15) (originally added by user Nas Banov):

Language          Relaxed  Strict
=========         =======  ======
GolfScript          130     143
Perl                        185
Windows PowerShell  148     199
Mathematica                 199
Ruby                185     205
Unix Toolchain      194     228
Python              183     243
Clojure                     282
Scala                       311
Haskell                     333
Awk                         336
R                   298
Javascript          304     354
Groovy              321
Matlab                      404
C#                          422
Smalltalk           386
PHP                 450
F#                          452
TSQL                483     507

The numbers represent the length of the shortest solution in a specific language. "Strict" refers to a solution that implements the spec completely (draws |____| bars, closes the first bar on top with a ____ line, accounts for the possibility of long words with high frequency etc). "Relaxed" means some liberties were taken to shorten to solution.

Only solutions shorter then 500 characters are included. The list of languages is sorted by the length of the 'strict' solution. 'Unix Toolchain' is used to signify various solutions that use traditional *nix shell plus a mix of tools (like grep, tr, sort, uniq, head, perl, awk).

Language Agnostic Solutions

Solution 1 - Language Agnostic

LabVIEW 51 nodes, 5 structures, 10 diagrams

Teaching the elephant to tap-dance is never pretty. I'll, ah, skip the character count.

The program flows from left to right:

Solution 2 - Language Agnostic

Ruby 1.9, 185 chars

(heavily based on the other Ruby solutions)

w=($<.read.downcase.scan(/[a-z]+/)-%w{the and of to a i it in or is}).group_by{|x|x}.map{|x,y|[-y.size,x]}.sort[0,22]
k,l=w[0]
puts [?\s+?_*m=76-l.size,w.map{|f,x|?|+?_*(f*m/k)+"| "+x}]

Instead of using any command line switches like the other solutions, you can simply pass the filename as argument. (i.e. ruby1.9 wordfrequency.rb Alice.txt)

Since I'm using character-literals here, this solution only works in Ruby 1.9.

Edit: Replaced semicolons by line breaks for "readability". :P

Edit 2: Shtééf pointed out I forgot the trailing space - fixed that.

Edit 3: Removed the trailing space again ;)

Solution 3 - Language Agnostic

GolfScript, 177 175 173 167 164 163 144 131 130 chars

Slow - 3 minutes for the sample text (130)

{32|.123%97<n@if}%]''*n%"oftoitinorisa"2/-"theandi"3/-$(1@{.3$>1{;)}if}/]2/{~~\;}$22<.0=~:2;,76\-:1'_':0*' '\@{"
|"\~1*2/0*'| '@}/

Explanation:

{           #loop through all characters
 32|.       #convert to uppercase and duplicate
 123%97<    #determine if is a letter
 n@if       #return either the letter or a newline
}%          #return an array (of ints)
]''*        #convert array to a string with magic
n%          #split on newline, removing blanks (stack is an array of words now)
"oftoitinorisa"   #push this string
2/          #split into groups of two, i.e. ["of" "to" "it" "in" "or" "is" "a"]
-           #remove any occurrences from the text
"theandi"3/-#remove "the", "and", and "i"
$           #sort the array of words
(1@         #takes the first word in the array, pushes a 1, reorders stack
            #the 1 is the current number of occurrences of the first word
{           #loop through the array
 .3$>1{;)}if#increment the count or push the next word and a 1
}/
]2/         #gather stack into an array and split into groups of 2
{~~\;}$     #sort by the latter element - the count of occurrences of each word
22<         #take the first 22 elements
.0=~:2;     #store the highest count
,76\-:1     #store the length of the first line
'_':0*' '\@ #make the first line
{           #loop through each word
"
|"\~        #start drawing the bar
1*2/0       #divide by zero
*'| '@      #finish drawing the bar
}/

"Correct" (hopefully). (143)

{32|.123%97<n@if}%]''*n%"oftoitinorisa"2/-"theandi"3/-$(1@{.3$>1{;)}if}/]2/{~~\;}$22<..0=1=:^;{~76@,-^*\/}%$0=:1'_':0*' '\@{"
|"\~1*^/0*'| '@}/

Less slow - half a minute. (162)

'"'/' ':S*n/S*'"#{%q
'\+"
.downcase.tr('^a-z','
')}\""+~n%"oftoitinorisa"2/-"theandi"3/-$(1@{.3$>1{;)}if}/]2/{~~\;}$22<.0=~:2;,76\-:1'_':0*S\@{"
|"\~1*2/0*'| '@}/

Output visible in revision logs.

Solution 4 - Language Agnostic

206

shell, grep, tr, grep, sort, uniq, sort, head, perl

~ % wc -c wfg
209 wfg
~ % cat wfg
egrep -oi \\b[a-z]+|tr A-Z a-z|egrep -wv 'the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is'|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|head -22|perl -lape'($f,$w)=@F;$.>1or($q,$x)=($f,76-length$w);$b="_"x($f/$q*$x);$_="|$b| $w ";$.>1or$_=" $b\n$_"'
~ % # usage:
~ % sh wfg < 11.txt

~~hm, just seen above: sort -nr -> sort -n and then head -> tail => 208 :)~~
update2: erm, of course the above is silly, as it will be reversed then. So, 209.
update3: optimized the exclusion regexp -> 206

egrep -oi \\b[a-z]+|tr A-Z a-z|egrep -wv 'the|and|o[fr]|to|a|i[tns]?'|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|head -22|perl -lape'($f,$w)=@F;$.>1or($q,$x)=($f,76-length$w);$b="_"x($f/$q*$x);$_="|$b| $w ";$.>1or$_=" $b\n$_"'

for fun, here's a perl-only version (much faster):

~ % wc -c pgolf
204 pgolf
~ % cat pgolf
perl -lne'$1=~/^(the|and|o[fr]|to|.|i[tns])$/i||$f{lc$1}++while/\b([a-z]+)/gi}{@w=(sort{$f{$b}<=>$f{$a}}keys%f)[0..21];$Q=$f{$_=$w[0]};$B=76-y///c;print" "."_"x$B;print"|"."_"x($B*$f{$_}/$Q)."| $_"for@w'
~ % # usage:
~ % sh pgolf < 11.txt

Solution 5 - Language Agnostic

Transact SQL set based solution (SQL Server 2005) 1063 892 873 853 827 820 783 683 647 644 630 characters

Thanks to Gabe for some useful suggestions to reduce the character count.

NB: Line breaks added to avoid scrollbars only the last line break is required.

DECLARE @ VARCHAR(MAX),@F REAL SELECT @=BulkColumn FROM OPENROWSET(BULK'A',
SINGLE_BLOB)x;WITH N AS(SELECT 1 i,LEFT(@,1)L UNION ALL SELECT i+1,SUBSTRING
(@,i+1,1)FROM N WHERE i<LEN(@))SELECT i,L,i-RANK()OVER(ORDER BY i)R INTO #D
FROM N WHERE L LIKE'[A-Z]'OPTION(MAXRECURSION 0)SELECT TOP 22 W,-COUNT(*)C
INTO # FROM(SELECT DISTINCT R,(SELECT''+L FROM #D WHERE R=b.R FOR XML PATH
(''))W FROM #D b)t WHERE LEN(W)>1 AND W NOT IN('the','and','of','to','it',
'in','or','is')GROUP BY W ORDER BY C SELECT @F=MIN(($76-LEN(W))/-C),@=' '+
REPLICATE('_',-MIN(C)*@F)+' 'FROM # SELECT @=@+' 
|'+REPLICATE('_',-C*@F)+'| '+W FROM # ORDER BY C PRINT @

Readable Version

DECLARE @  VARCHAR(MAX),
        @F REAL
SELECT @=BulkColumn
FROM   OPENROWSET(BULK'A',SINGLE_BLOB)x; /*  Loads text file from path
                                             C:\WINDOWS\system32\A  */
    
/*Recursive common table expression to
generate a table of numbers from 1 to string length
(and associated characters)*/
WITH N AS
     (SELECT 1 i,
             LEFT(@,1)L
     
     UNION ALL
     
     SELECT i+1,
            SUBSTRING(@,i+1,1)
     FROM   N
     WHERE  i<LEN(@)
     )
  SELECT   i,
           L,
           i-RANK()OVER(ORDER BY i)R
           /*Will group characters
           from the same word together*/
  INTO     #D
  FROM     N
  WHERE    L LIKE'[A-Z]'OPTION(MAXRECURSION 0)
             /*Assuming case insensitive accent sensitive collation*/

SELECT   TOP 22 W,
         -COUNT(*)C
INTO     #
FROM     (SELECT DISTINCT R,
                          (SELECT ''+L
                          FROM    #D
                          WHERE   R=b.R FOR XML PATH('')
                          )W
                          /*Reconstitute the word from the characters*/
         FROM             #D b
         )
         T
WHERE    LEN(W)>1
AND      W NOT IN('the',
                  'and',
                  'of' ,
                  'to' ,
                  'it' ,
                  'in' ,
                  'or' ,
                  'is')
GROUP BY W
ORDER BY C

/*Just noticed this looks risky as it relies on the order of evaluation of the 
 variables. I'm not sure that's guaranteed but it works on my machine :-) */
SELECT @F=MIN(($76-LEN(W))/-C),
       @ =' '      +REPLICATE('_',-MIN(C)*@F)+' '
FROM   #

SELECT @=@+' 
|'+REPLICATE('_',-C*@F)+'| '+W
             FROM     #
             ORDER BY C

PRINT @

Output

 _________________________________________________________________________ 
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| You
|____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| Alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|___________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|________________________________| her
|_____________________________| at
|_____________________________| with
|__________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|_______________________| This
|_______________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|_____________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| So
|___________________| very
|__________________| what

And with the long string

 _______________________________________________________________ 
|_______________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________| superlongstringstring
|____________________________________________________| said
|______________________________________________| Alice
|________________________________________| was
|_____________________________________| that
|_______________________________| as
|____________________________| her
|_________________________| at
|_________________________| with
|_______________________| on
|______________________| all
|____________________| This
|____________________| for
|____________________| had
|____________________| but
|___________________| be
|__________________| not
|_________________| they
|_________________| So
|________________| very
|________________| what

Solution 6 - Language Agnostic

Ruby 207 213 211 210 207 203 201 200 chars

An improvement on Anurag, incorporating suggestion from rfusca. Also removes argument to sort and a few other minor golfings.

w=(STDIN.read.downcase.scan(/[a-z]+/)-%w{the and of to a i it in or is}).group_by{|x|x}.map{|x,y|[-y.size,x]}.sort.take 22;k,l=w[0];m=76.0-l.size;puts' '+'_'*m;w.map{|f,x|puts"|#{'_'*(m*f/k)}| #{x} "}

Execute as:

ruby GolfedWordFrequencies.rb < Alice.txt

Edit: put 'puts' back in, needs to be there to avoid having quotes in output.
Edit2: Changed File->IO
Edit3: removed /i
Edit4: Removed parentheses around (f*1.0), recounted
Edit5: Use string addition for the first line; expand s in-place.
Edit6: Made m float, removed 1.0. EDIT: Doesn't work, changes lengths. EDIT: No worse than before
Edit7: Use STDIN.read.

Solution 7 - Language Agnostic

Mathematica (297 284 248 244 242 199 chars) Pure Functional

and Zipf's Law Testing

Look Mamma ... no vars, no hands, .. no head

Edit 1> some shorthands defined (284 chars)

f[x_, y_] := Flatten[Take[x, All, y]]; 

BarChart[f[{##}, -1], 
         BarOrigin -> Left, 
         ChartLabels -> Placed[f[{##}, 1], After], 
         Axes -> None
] 
& @@
Take[  SortBy[     Tally[       Select[        StringSplit[ToLowerCase[Import[i]], RegularExpression["\\W+"]], 
       !MemberQ[{"the", "and", "of", "to", "a", "i", "it", "in", "or","is"}, #]&]
     ], 
  Last], 
-22]

Some explanations

Import[] 
   # Get The File

ToLowerCase []
   # To Lower Case :)

StringSplit[ STRING , RegularExpression["\\W+"]]
   # Split By Words, getting a LIST

Select[ LIST, !MemberQ[{LIST_TO_AVOID}, #]&]
   #  Select from LIST except those words in LIST_TO_AVOID
   #  Note that !MemberQ[{LIST_TO_AVOID}, #]& is a FUNCTION for the test

Tally[LIST]
   # Get the LIST {word,word,..} 
     and produce another  {{word,counter},{word,counter}...}

SortBy[ LIST ,Last]
   # Get the list produced bt tally and sort by counters
     Note that counters are the LAST element of {word,counter}

Take[ LIST ,-22]
   # Once sorted, get the biggest 22 counters

BarChart[f[{##}, -1], ChartLabels -> Placed[f[{##}, 1], After]] &@@ LIST
   # Get the list produced by Take as input and produce a bar chart

f[x_, y_] := Flatten[Take[x, All, y]]
   # Auxiliary to get the list of the first or second element of lists of lists x_
     dependending upon y
   # So f[{##}, -1] is the list of counters
   # and f[{##}, 1] is the list of words (labels for the chart)

Output

alt text

Mathematica is not well suited for golfing, and that is just because of the long, descriptive function names. Functions like "RegularExpression[]" or "StringSplit[]" just make me sob :(.

Zipf's Law Testing

The Zipf's law predicts that for a natural language text, the Log (Rank) vs Log (occurrences) Plot follows a linear relationship.

The law is used in developing algorithms for criptography and data compression. (But it's NOT the "Z" in the LZW algorithm).

In our text, we can test it with the following

 f[x_, y_] := Flatten[Take[x, All, y]]; 
 ListLogLogPlot[
     Reverse[f[{##}, -1]], 
     AxesLabel -> {"Log (Rank)", "Log Counter"}, 
     PlotLabel -> "Testing Zipf's Law"]
 & @@
 Take[
  SortBy[
    Tally[
       StringSplit[ToLowerCase[b], RegularExpression["\\W+"]]
    ], 
   Last],
 -1000]

The result is (pretty well linear)

alt text

Edit 6 > (242 Chars)

Refactoring the Regex (no Select function anymore)
Dropping 1 char words
More efficient definition for function "f"

f = Flatten[Take[#1, All, #2]]&; 
BarChart[     f[{##}, -1], 
     BarOrigin -> Left, 
     ChartLabels -> Placed[f[{##}, 1], After], 
     Axes -> None] 
& @@
  Take[
    SortBy[
       Tally[
         StringSplit[ToLowerCase[Import[i]], 
          RegularExpression["(\\W|\\b(.|the|and|of|to|i[tns]|or)\\b)+"]]
       ],
    Last],
  -22]

Edit 7 → 199 characters

BarChart[#2, BarOrigin->Left, ChartLabels->Placed[#1, After], Axes->None]&@@ 
  Transpose@Take[SortBy[Tally@StringSplit[ToLowerCase@Import@i, 
    RegularExpression@"(\\W|\\b(.|the|and|of|to|i[tns]|or)\\b)+"],Last], -22]

Replaced f with Transpose and Slot (#1/#2) arguments.
We don't need no stinkin' brackets (use f@x instead of f[x] where possible)

Solution 8 - Language Agnostic

C# - 510 451 436 446 434 426 422 chars (minified)

Not that short, but now probably correct! Note, the previous version did not show the first line of the bars, did not scale the bars correctly, downloaded the file instead of getting it from stdin, and did not include all the required C# verbosity. You could easily shave many strokes if C# didn't need so much extra crap. Maybe Powershell could do better.

using C=System.Console;   // alias for Console
using System.Linq;  // for Split, GroupBy, Select, OrderBy, etc.

class Class // must define a class
{
    static void Main()  // must define a Main
    {
        // split into words
        var allwords = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(
                // convert stdin to lowercase
                C.In.ReadToEnd().ToLower(),
                // eliminate stopwords and non-letters
                @"(?:\b(?:the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b|\W)+")
            .GroupBy(x => x)    // group by words
            .OrderBy(x => -x.Count()) // sort descending by count
            .Take(22);   // take first 22 words

        // compute length of longest bar + word
        var lendivisor = allwords.Max(y => y.Count() / (76.0 - y.Key.Length));

        // prepare text to print
        var toPrint = allwords.Select(x=> 
            new { 
                // remember bar pseudographics (will be used in two places)
                Bar = new string('_',(int)(x.Count()/lendivisor)), 
                Word=x.Key 
            })
            .ToList();  // convert to list so we can index into it

        // print top of first bar
        C.WriteLine(" " + toPrint[0].Bar);
        toPrint.ForEach(x =>  // for each word, print its bar and the word
            C.WriteLine("|" + x.Bar + "| " + x.Word));
    }
}

422 chars with lendivisor inlined (which makes it 22 times slower) in the below form (newlines used for select spaces):

using System.Linq;using C=System.Console;class M{static void Main(){var
a=System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(C.In.ReadToEnd().ToLower(),@"(?:\b(?:the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b|\W)+").GroupBy(x=>x).OrderBy(x=>-x.Count()).Take(22);var
b=a.Select(x=>new{p=new string('_',(int)(x.Count()/a.Max(y=>y.Count()/(76d-y.Key.Length)))),t=x.Key}).ToList();C.WriteLine(" "+b[0].p);b.ForEach(x=>C.WriteLine("|"+x.p+"| "+x.t));}}

Solution 9 - Language Agnostic

Perl, 237 229 209 chars

(Updated again to beat the Ruby version with more dirty golf tricks, replacing split/[^a-z/,lc with lc=~/[a-z]+/g, and eliminating a check for empty string in another place. These were inspired by the Ruby version, so credit where credit is due.)

Update: now with Perl 5.10! Replace print with say, and use ~~ to avoid a map. This has to be invoked on the command line as perl -E '<one-liner>' alice.txt. Since the entire script is on one line, writing it as a one-liner shouldn't present any difficulty :).

 @s=qw/the and of to a i it in or is/;$c{$_}++foreach grep{!($_~~@s)}map{lc=~/[a-z]+/g}<>;@s=sort{$c{$b}<=>$c{$a}}keys%c;$f=76-length$s[0];say" "."_"x$f;say"|"."_"x($c{$_}/$c{$s[0]}*$f)."| $_ "foreach@s[0..21];

Note that this version normalizes for case. This doesn't shorten the solution any, since removing ,lc (for lower-casing) requires you to add A-Z to the split regex, so it's a wash.

If you're on a system where a newline is one character and not two, you can shorten this by another two chars by using a literal newline in place of \n. However, I haven't written the above sample that way, since it's "clearer" (ha!) that way.

Here is a mostly correct, but not remotely short enough, perl solution:

use strict;
use warnings;

my %short = map { $_ => 1 } qw/the and of to a i it in or is/;
my %count = ();

$count{$_}++ foreach grep { $_ && !$short{$_} } map { split /[^a-zA-Z]/ } (<>);
my @sorted = (sort { $count{$b} <=> $count{$a} } keys %count)[0..21];
my $widest = 76 - (length $sorted[0]);

print " " . ("_" x $widest) . "\n";
foreach (@sorted)
{
    my $width = int(($count{$_} / $count{$sorted[0]}) * $widest);
    print "|" . ("_" x $width) . "| $_ \n";
}

The following is about as short as it can get while remaining relatively readable. (392 chars).

%short = map { $_ => 1 } qw/the and of to a i it in or is/;
%count;

$count{$_}++ foreach grep { $_ && !$short{$_} } map { split /[^a-z]/, lc } (<>);
@sorted = (sort { $count{$b} <=> $count{$a} } keys %count)[0..21];
$widest = 76 - (length $sorted[0]);

print " " . "_" x $widest . "\n";
print"|" . "_" x int(($count{$_} / $count{$sorted[0]}) * $widest) . "| $_ \n" foreach @sorted;

Solution 10 - Language Agnostic

Windows PowerShell, 199 chars

$x=$input-split'\P{L}'-notmatch'^(the|and|of|to|.?|i[tns]|or)$'|group|sort *
filter f($w){' '+'_'*$w
$x[-1..-22]|%{"|$('_'*($w*$_.Count/$x[-1].Count))| "+$_.Name}}
f(76..1|?{!((f $_)-match'.'*80)})[0]

(The last line break isn't necessary, but included here for readability.)

(Current code and my test files available in my SVN repository. I hope my test cases catch most common errors (bar length, problems with regex matching and a few others))

Assumptions:

US ASCII as input. It probably gets weird with Unicode.
At least two non-stop words in the text

History

Relaxed version (137), since that's counted separately by now, apparently:

($x=$input-split'\P{L}'-notmatch'^(the|and|of|to|.?|i[tns]|or)$'|group|sort *)[-1..-22]|%{"|$('_'*(76*$_.Count/$x[-1].Count))| "+$_.Name}

doesn't close the first bar
doesn't account for word length of non-first word

Variations of the bar lengths of one character compared to other solutions is due to PowerShell using rounding instead of truncation when converting floating-point numbers into integers. Since the task required only proportional bar length this should be fine, though.

Compared to other solutions I took a slightly different approach in determining the longest bar length by simply trying out and taking the highest such length where no line is longer than 80 characters.

An older version explained can be found here.

Solution 11 - Language Agnostic

Ruby, 215, 216, 218, 221, 224, 236, 237 chars

update 1: Hurray! It's a tie with JS Bangs' solution. Can't think of a way to cut down any more :)

update 2: Played a dirty golf trick. Changed each to map to save 1 character :)

update 3: Changed File.read to IO.read +2. Array.group_by wasn't very fruitful, changed to reduce +6. Case insensitive check is not needed after lower casing with downcase in regex +1. Sorting in descending order is easily done by negating the value +6. Total savings +15

update 4: [0] rather than .first, +3. (@Shtééf)

update 5: Expand variable l in-place, +1. Expand variable s in-place, +2. (@Shtééf)

update 6: Use string addition rather than interpolation for the first line, +2. (@Shtééf)

w=(IO.read($_).downcase.scan(/[a-z]+/)-%w{the and of to a i it in or is}).reduce(Hash.new 0){|m,o|m[o]+=1;m}.sort_by{|k,v|-v}.take 22;m=76-w[0][0].size;puts' '+'_'*m;w.map{|x,f|puts"|#{'_'*(f*1.0/w[0][1]*m)}| #{x} "}

update 7: I went through a whole lot of hoopla to detect the first iteration inside the loop, using instance variables. All I got is +1, though perhaps there is potential. Preserving the previous version, because I believe this one is black magic. (@Shtééf)

(IO.read($_).downcase.scan(/[a-z]+/)-%w{the and of to a i it in or is}).reduce(Hash.new 0){|m,o|m[o]+=1;m}.sort_by{|k,v|-v}.take(22).map{|x,f|@f||(@f=f;puts' '+'_'*(@m=76-x.size));puts"|#{'_'*(f*1.0/@f*@m)}| #{x} "}

Readable version

string = File.read($_).downcase

words = string.scan(/[a-z]+/i)
allowed_words = words - %w{the and of to a i it in or is}
sorted_words = allowed_words.group_by{ |x| x }.map{ |x,y| [x, y.size] }.sort{ |a,b| b[1] <=> a[1] }.take(22)
highest_frequency = sorted_words.first
highest_frequency_count = highest_frequency[1]
highest_frequency_word = highest_frequency[0]

word_length = highest_frequency_word.size
widest = 76 - word_length

puts " #{'_' * widest}"    
sorted_words.each do |word, freq|
  width = (freq * 1.0 / highest_frequency_count) * widest
  puts "|#{'_' * width}| #{word} "
end

To use:

echo "Alice.txt" | ruby -ln GolfedWordFrequencies.rb

Output:

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she 
|_______________________________________________________________| you 
|____________________________________________________________| said 
|_____________________________________________________| alice 
|_______________________________________________| was 
|___________________________________________| that 
|____________________________________| as 
|________________________________| her 
|_____________________________| with 
|_____________________________| at 
|____________________________| s 
|____________________________| t 
|__________________________| on 
|__________________________| all 
|_______________________| this 
|_______________________| for 
|_______________________| had 
|_______________________| but 
|______________________| be 
|_____________________| not 
|____________________| they 
|____________________| so

Solution 12 - Language Agnostic

Python 2.x, latitudinarian approach = 227 183 chars

import sys,re
t=re.split('\W+',sys.stdin.read().lower())
r=sorted((-t.count(w),w)for w in set(t)if w not in'andithetoforinis')[:22]
for l,w in r:print(78-len(r[0][1]))*l/r[0][0]*'=',w

Allowing for freedom in the implementation, I constructed a string concatenation that contains all the words requested for exclusion (the, and, of, to, a, i, it, in, or, is) - plus it also excludes the two infamous "words" s and t from the example - and I threw in for free the exclusion for an, for, he. I tried all concatenations of those words against corpus of the words from Alice, King James' Bible and the Jargon file to see if there are any words that will be mis-excluded by the string. And that is how I ended with two exclusion strings:itheandtoforinis and andithetoforinis.

PS. borrowed from other solutions to shorten the code.

=========================================================================== she 
================================================================= you
============================================================== said
====================================================== alice
================================================ was
============================================ that
===================================== as
================================= her
============================== at
============================== with
=========================== on
=========================== all
======================== this
======================== had
======================= but
====================== be
====================== not
===================== they
==================== so
=================== very
=================== what
================= little

Rant

Regarding words to ignore, one would think those would be taken from list of the most used words in English. That list depends on the text corpus used. Per one of the most popular lists (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English>;, <http://www.english-for-students.com/Frequently-Used-Words.html>;, <http://www.sporcle.com/games/common_english_words.php>;), top 10 words are: the be(am/are/is/was/were) to of and a in that have I

The top 10 words from the Alice in Wonderland text are the and to a of it she i you said
The top 10 words from the Jargon File (v4.4.7) are the a of to and in is that or for

So question is why or was included in the problem's ignore list, where it's ~30th in popularity when the word that (8th most used) is not. etc, etc. Hence I believe the ignore list should be provided dynamically (or could be omitted).

Alternative idea would be simply to skip the top 10 words from the result - which actually would shorten the solution (elementary - have to show only the 11th to 32nd entries).

Python 2.x, punctilious approach = 277 243 chars

The chart drawn in the above code is simplified (using only one character for the bars). If one wants to reproduce exactly the chart from the problem description (which was not required), this code will do it:

import sys,re
t=re.split('\W+',sys.stdin.read().lower())
r=sorted((-t.count(w),w)for w in set(t)-set(sys.argv))[:22]
h=min(9*l/(77-len(w))for l,w in r)
print'',9*r[0][0]/h*'_'
for l,w in r:print'|'+9*l/h*'_'+'|',w

I take an issue with the somewhat random choice of the 10 words to exclude the, and, of, to, a, i, it, in, or, is so those are to be passed as command line parameters, like so:
python WordFrequencyChart.py the and of to a i it in or is <"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt"

This is 213 chars + 30 if we account for the "original" ignore list passed on command line = 243

PS. The second code also does "adjustment" for the lengths of all top words, so none of them will overflow in degenerate case.

 _______________________________________________________________
|_______________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________| superlongstringstring
|_____________________________________________________| said
|______________________________________________| alice
|_________________________________________| was
|______________________________________| that
|_______________________________| as
|____________________________| her
|__________________________| at
|__________________________| with
|_________________________| s
|_________________________| t
|_______________________| on
|_______________________| all
|____________________| this
|____________________| for
|____________________| had
|____________________| but
|___________________| be
|___________________| not
|_________________| they
|_________________| so

Solution 13 - Language Agnostic

Haskell - 366 351 344 337 333 characters

(One line break in main added for readability, and no line break needed at end of last line.)

import Data.List
import Data.Char
l=length
t=filter
m=map
f c|isAlpha c=toLower c|0<1=' '
h w=(-l w,head w)
x!(q,w)='|':replicate(minimum$m(q?)x)'_'++"| "++w
q?(g,w)=q*(77-l w)`div`g
b x=m(x!)x
a(l:r)=(' ':t(=='_')l):l:r
main=interact$unlines.a.b.take 22.sort.m h.group.sort
  .t(`notElem`words"the and of to a i it in or is").words.m f

How it works is best seen by reading the argument to interact backwards:

map f lowercases alphabetics, replaces everything else with spaces.
words produces a list of words, dropping the separating whitespace.
filter (notElem words "the and of to a i it in or is") discards all entries with forbidden words.
group . sort sorts the words, and groups identical ones into lists.
map h maps each list of identical words to a tuple of the form (-frequency, word).
take 22 . sort sorts the tuples by descending frequency (the first tuple entry), and keeps only the first 22 tuples.
b maps tuples to bars (see below).
a prepends the first line of underscores, to complete the topmost bar.
unlines joins all these lines together with newlines.

The tricky bit is getting the bar length right. I assumed that only underscores counted towards the length of the bar, so || would be a bar of zero length. The function b maps c x over x, where x is the list of histograms. The entire list is passed to c, so that each invocation of c can compute the scale factor for itself by calling u. In this way, I avoid using floating-point math or rationals, whose conversion functions and imports would eat many characters.

Note the trick of using -frequency. This removes the need to reverse the sort since sorting (ascending) -frequency will places the words with the largest frequency first. Later, in the function u, two -frequency values are multiplied, which will cancel the negation out.

Solution 14 - Language Agnostic

##JavaScript 1.8 (SpiderMonkey) - 354##

x={};p='|';e=' ';z=[];c=77
while(l=readline())l.toLowerCase().replace(/\b(?!(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b)\w+/g,function(y)x[y]?x[y].c++:z.push(x[y]={w:y,c:1}))
z=z.sort(function(a,b)b.c-a.c).slice(0,22)
for each(v in z){v.r=v.c/z[0].c
c=c>(l=(77-v.w.length)/v.r)?l:c}for(k in z){v=z[k]
s=Array(v.r*c|0).join('_')
if(!+k)print(e+s+e)
print(p+s+p+e+v.w)}

Sadly, the for([k,v]in z) from the Rhino version doesn't seem to want to work in SpiderMonkey, and readFile() is a little easier than using readline() but moving up to 1.8 allows us to use function closures to cut a few more lines....

Adding whitespace for readability:

x={};p='|';e=' ';z=[];c=77
while(l=readline())
  l.toLowerCase().replace(/\b(?!(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b)\w+/g,
   function(y) x[y] ? x[y].c++ : z.push( x[y] = {w: y, c: 1} )
  )
z=z.sort(function(a,b) b.c - a.c).slice(0,22)
for each(v in z){
  v.r=v.c/z[0].c
  c=c>(l=(77-v.w.length)/v.r)?l:c
}
for(k in z){
  v=z[k]
  s=Array(v.r*c|0).join('_')
  if(!+k)print(e+s+e)
  print(p+s+p+e+v.w)
}

Usage: js golf.js < input.txt

Output:



|| she
|_____________| you
|____| said
|| alice
|| was
|| that
|_______________________________| as
|| her
|_________________________| at
|| with
|__________________________| s
|| t
|| on
|_________________________| all
|| this
|| for
|| had
|____________________| but
|_________________| be
|| not
|| they
|___________________| so

(base version - doesn't handle bar widths correctly)

JavaScript (Rhino) - 405 395 387 377 368 343 304 chars

~~I think my sorting logic is off, but.. I duno.~~ Brainfart fixed.

Minified (abusing \n's interpreted as a ; sometimes):

x={};p='|';e=' ';z=[]
readFile(arguments[0]).toLowerCase().replace(/\b(?!(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b)\w+/g,function(y){x[y]?x[y].c++:z.push(x[y]={w:y,c:1})})
z=z.sort(function(a,b){return b.c-a.c}).slice(0,22)
for([k,v]in z){s=Array((v.c/z[0].c)*70|0).join('_')
if(!+k)print(e+s+e)
print(p+s+p+e+v.w)}

Solution 15 - Language Agnostic

perl, 205 191 189 characters/ 205 characters (fully implemented)

Some parts were inspired by the earlier perl/ruby submissions, a couple similar ideas were arrived at independently, the others are original. Shorter version also incorporates some things I saw/learned from other submissions.

Original:

$k{$_}++for grep{$_!~/^(the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)$/}map{lc=~/[a-z]+/g}<>;@t=sort{$k{$b}<=>$k{$a}}keys%k;$l=76-length$t[0];printf" %s
",'_'x$l;printf"|%s| $_
",'_'x int$k{$_}/$k{$t[0]}*$l for@t[0..21];

~~Latest version down to~~ 191 characters:

/^(the|and|of|to|.|i[tns]|or)$/||$k{$_}++for map{lc=~/[a-z]+/g}<>;@e=sort{$k{$b}<=>$k{$a}}keys%k;$n=" %s
";$r=(76-y///c)/$k{$_=$e[0]};map{printf$n,'_'x($k{$_}*$r),$_;$n="|%s| %s
"}@e[0,0..21]

Latest version down to 189 characters:

/^(the|and|of|to|.|i[tns]|or)$/||$k{$_}++for map{lc=~/[a-z]+/g}<>;@_=sort{$k{$b}<=>$k{$a}}keys%k;$n=" %s
";$r=(76-m//)/$k{$_=$_[0]};map{printf$n,'_'x($k{$_}*$r),$_;$n="|%s| %s
"}@_[0,0..21]

This version (205 char) accounts for the lines with words longer than what would be found later.

/^(the|and|of|to|.|i[tns]|or)$/||$k{$_}++for map{lc=~/[a-z]+/g}<>;($r)=sort{$a<=>$b}map{(76-y///c)/$k{$_}}@e=sort{$k{$b}<=>$k{$a}}keys%k;$n=" %s
";map{printf$n,'_'x($k{$_}*$r),$_;$n="|%s| %s
";}@e[0,0..21]

Solution 16 - Language Agnostic

Python 3.1 - 245 229 charaters

I guess using Counter is kind of cheating :) I just read about it about a week ago, so this was the perfect chance to see how it works.

import re,collections
o=collections.Counter([w for w in re.findall("[a-z]+",open("!").read().lower())if w not in"a and i in is it of or the to".split()]).most_common(22)
print('\n'.join('|'+76*v//o[0][1]*'_'+'| '+k for k,v in o))

Prints out:

|____________________________________________________________________________| she
|__________________________________________________________________| you
|_______________________________________________________________| said
|_______________________________________________________| alice
|_________________________________________________| was
|_____________________________________________| that
|_____________________________________| as
|__________________________________| her
|_______________________________| with
|_______________________________| at
|______________________________| s
|_____________________________| t
|____________________________| on
|___________________________| all
|________________________| this
|________________________| for
|________________________| had
|________________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|_____________________| they
|____________________| so

Some of the code was "borrowed" from AKX's solution.

Solution 17 - Language Agnostic

PHP CLI version (450 chars)

This solution takes into account the last requirement which most purists have conviniently chosen to ignore. That costed 170 characters!

Usage: php.exe <this.php> <file.txt>

Minified:

<?php $a=array_count_values(array_filter(preg_split('/[^a-z]/',strtolower(file_get_contents($argv[1])),-1,1),function($x){return !preg_match("/^(.|the|and|of|to|it|in|or|is)$/",$x);}));arsort($a);$a=array_slice($a,0,22);function R($a,$F,$B){$r=array();foreach($a as$x=>$f){$l=strlen($x);$r[$x]=$b=$f*$B/$F;if($l+$b>76)return R($a,$f,76-$l);}return$r;}$c=R($a,max($a),76-strlen(key($a)));foreach($a as$x=>$f)echo '|',str_repeat('-',$c[$x]),"| $x\n";?>

Human readable:

<?php

// Read:
$s = strtolower(file_get_contents($argv[1]));

// Split:
$a = preg_split('/[^a-z]/', $s, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

// Remove unwanted words:
$a = array_filter($a, function($x){
       return !preg_match("/^(.|the|and|of|to|it|in|or|is)$/",$x);
     });
     
// Count:
$a = array_count_values($a);

// Sort:
arsort($a);

// Pick top 22:
$a=array_slice($a,0,22);


// Recursive function to adjust bar widths
// according to the last requirement:
function R($a,$F,$B){
	$r = array();
	foreach($a as $x=>$f){
		$l = strlen($x);
		$r[$x] = $b = $f * $B / $F;
		if ( $l + $b > 76 )
			return R($a,$f,76-$l);
	}
	return $r;
}

// Apply the function:
$c = R($a,max($a),76-strlen(key($a)));


// Output:
foreach ($a as $x => $f)
	echo '|',str_repeat('-',$c[$x]),"| $x\n";

?>

Output:

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------| she
|---------------------------------------------------------------| you
|------------------------------------------------------------| said
|-----------------------------------------------------| alice
|-----------------------------------------------| was
|-------------------------------------------| that
|------------------------------------| as
|--------------------------------| her
|-----------------------------| at
|-----------------------------| with
|--------------------------| on
|--------------------------| all
|-----------------------| this
|-----------------------| for
|-----------------------| had
|-----------------------| but
|----------------------| be
|---------------------| not
|--------------------| they
|--------------------| so
|-------------------| very
|------------------| what

When there is a long word, the bars are adjusted properly:

|--------------------------------------------------------| she
|---------------------------------------------------| thisisareallylongwordhere
|-------------------------------------------------| you
|-----------------------------------------------| said
|-----------------------------------------| alice
|------------------------------------| was
|---------------------------------| that
|---------------------------| as
|-------------------------| her
|-----------------------| with
|-----------------------| at
|--------------------| on
|--------------------| all
|------------------| this
|------------------| for
|------------------| had
|-----------------| but
|-----------------| be
|----------------| not
|---------------| they
|---------------| so
|--------------| very

Solution 18 - Language Agnostic

Perl: 203 202 201 198 195 208 203 / 231 chars

$/=\0;/^(the|and|of|to|.|i[tns]|or)$/i||$x{lc$_}++for<>=~/[a-z]+/gi;map{$z=$x{$_};$y||{$y=(76-y///c)/$z}&&warn" "."_"x($z*$y)."\n";printf"|%.78s\n","_"x($z*$y)."| $_"}(sort{$x{$b}<=>$x{$a}}keys%x)[0..21]

Alternate, full implementation including indicated behaviour (global bar-squishing) for the pathological case in which the secondary word is both popular and long enough to combine to over 80 chars (this implementation is 231 chars):

$/=\0;/^(the|and|of|to|.|i[tns]|or)$/i||$x{lc$_}++for<>=~/[a-z]+/gi;@e=(sort{$x{$b}<=>$x{$a}}keys%x)[0..21];for(@e){$p=(76-y///c)/$x{$_};($y&&$p>$y)||($y=$p)}warn" "."_"x($x{$e[0]}*$y)."\n";for(@e){warn"|"."_"x($x{$_}*$y)."| $_\n"}

The specification didn't state anywhere that this had to go to STDOUT, so I used perl's warn() instead of print - four characters saved there. Used map instead of foreach, but I feel like there could still be some more savings in the split(join()). Still, got it down to 203 - might sleep on it. At least Perl's now under the "shell, grep, tr, grep, sort, uniq, sort, head, perl" char count for now ;)

PS: Reddit says "Hi" ;)

Update: Removed join() in favour of assignment and implicit scalar conversion join. Down to 202. Also please note I have taken advantage of the optional "ignore 1-letter words" rule to shave 2 characters off, so bear in mind the frequency count will reflect this.

Update 2: Swapped out assignment and implicit join for killing $/ to get the file in one gulp using <> in the first place. Same size, but nastier. Swapped out if(!$y){} for $y||{}&&, saved 1 more char => 201.

Update 3: Took control of lowercasing early (lc<>) by moving lc out of the map block - Swapped out both regexes to no longer use /i option, as no longer needed. Swapped explicit conditional x?y:z construct for traditional perlgolf || implicit conditional construct - /^...$/i?1:$x{$}++ for /^...$/||$x{$}++ Saved three characters! => 198, broke the 200 barrier. Might sleep soon... perhaps.

Update 4: Sleep deprivation has made me insane. Well. More insane. Figuring that this only has to parse normal happy text files, I made it give up if it hits a null. Saved two characters. Replaced "length" with the 1-char shorter (and much more golfish) y///c - you hear me, GolfScript?? I'm coming for you!!! sob

Update 5: Sleep dep made me forget about the 22row limit and subsequent-line limiting. Back up to 208 with those handled. Not too bad, 13 characters to handle it isn't the end of the world. Played around with perl's regex inline eval, but having trouble getting it to both work and save chars... lol. Updated the example to match current output.

Update 6: Removed unneeded braces protecting (...)for, since the syntactic candy ++ allows shoving it up against the for happily. Thanks to input from Chas. Owens (reminding my tired brain), got the character class i[tns] solution in there. Back down to 203.

Update 7: Added second piece of work, full implementation of specs (including the full bar-squishing behaviour for secondary long-words, instead of truncation which most people are doing, based on the original spec without the pathological example case)

Examples:

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|___________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|________________________________| her
|_____________________________| with
|_____________________________| at
|__________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|_______________________| this
|_______________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|_____________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|__________________| what

Alternative implementation in pathological case example:

 _______________________________________________________________
|_______________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________| superlongstringstring
|____________________________________________________| said
|______________________________________________| alice
|________________________________________| was
|_____________________________________| that
|_______________________________| as
|____________________________| her
|_________________________| with
|_________________________| at
|_______________________| on
|______________________| all
|____________________| this
|____________________| for
|____________________| had
|____________________| but
|___________________| be
|__________________| not
|_________________| they
|_________________| so
|________________| very
|________________| what

Solution 19 - Language Agnostic

F#, 452 chars

Strightforward: get a sequence a of word-count pairs, find the best word-count-per-column multiplier k, then print results.

let a=
 stdin.ReadToEnd().Split(" .?!,\":;'\r\n".ToCharArray(),enum 1)
 |>Seq.map(fun s->s.ToLower())|>Seq.countBy id
 |>Seq.filter(fun(w,n)->not(set["the";"and";"of";"to";"a";"i";"it";"in";"or";"is"].Contains w))
 |>Seq.sortBy(fun(w,n)-> -n)|>Seq.take 22
let k=a|>Seq.map(fun(w,n)->float(78-w.Length)/float n)|>Seq.min
let u n=String.replicate(int(float(n)*k)-2)"_"
printfn" %s "(u(snd(Seq.nth 0 a)))
for(w,n)in a do printfn"|%s| %s "(u n)w

Example (I have different freq counts than you, unsure why):

% app.exe < Alice.txt

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|___________________________________________| that
|___________________________________| as
|________________________________| her
|_____________________________| with
|_____________________________| at
|____________________________| t
|____________________________| s
|__________________________| on
|_________________________| all
|_______________________| this
|______________________| had
|______________________| for
|_____________________| but
|_____________________| be
|____________________| not
|___________________| they
|__________________| so

Solution 20 - Language Agnostic

Python 2.6, 347 chars

import re
W,x={},"a and i in is it of or the to".split()
[W.__setitem__(w,W.get(w,0)-1)for w in re.findall("[a-z]+",file("11.txt").read().lower())if w not in x]
W=sorted(W.items(),key=lambda p:p[1])[:22]
bm=(76.-len(W[0][0]))/W[0][1]
U=lambda n:"_"*int(n*bm)
print "".join(("%s\n|%s| %s "%((""if i else" "+U(n)),U(n),w))for i,(w,n)in enumerate(W))

Output:

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she 
|_______________________________________________________________| you 
|____________________________________________________________| said 
|_____________________________________________________| alice 
|_______________________________________________| was 
|___________________________________________| that 
|____________________________________| as 
|________________________________| her 
|_____________________________| with 
|_____________________________| at 
|____________________________| s 
|____________________________| t 
|__________________________| on 
|__________________________| all 
|_______________________| this 
|_______________________| for 
|_______________________| had 
|_______________________| but 
|______________________| be 
|_____________________| not 
|____________________| they 
|____________________| so

Solution 21 - Language Agnostic

Gawk -- 336 (originally 507) characters

(after fixing the output formatting; fixing the contractions thing; tweaking; tweaking again; removing a wholly unnecessary sorting step; tweaking yet again; and again (oops this one broke the formatting); tweak some more; taking up Matt's challenge I desperately tweak so more; found another place to save a few, but gave two back to fix the bar length bug)

Heh heh! I am momentarily ahead of [Matt's JavaScript][1] solution^{counter challenge! ;)} and [AKX's python][2].

The problem seems to call out for a language that implements native associative arrays, so of course I've chosen one with a horribly deficient set of operators on them. In particular, you cannot control the order in which awk offers up the elements of a hash map, so I repeatedly scan the whole map to find the currently most numerous item, print it and delete it from the array.

It is all terribly inefficient, with all the golfifcations I've made it has gotten to be pretty awful, as well.

Minified:

{gsub("[^a-zA-Z]"," ");for(;NF;NF--)a[tolower($NF)]++}
END{split("the and of to a i it in or is",b," ");
for(w in b)delete a[b[w]];d=1;for(w in a){e=a[w]/(78-length(w));if(e>d)d=e}
for(i=22;i;--i){e=0;for(w in a)if(a[w]>e)e=a[x=w];l=a[x]/d-2;
t=sprintf(sprintf("%%%dc",l)," ");gsub(" ","_",t);if(i==22)print" "t;
print"|"t"| "x;delete a[x]}}

line breaks for clarity only: they are not necessary and should not be counted.

Output:

$ gawk -f wordfreq.awk.min < 11.txt 
 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|____________________________________________________________| said
|____________________________________________________| alice
|______________________________________________| was
|__________________________________________| that
|___________________________________| as
|_______________________________| her
|____________________________| with
|____________________________| at
|___________________________| s
|___________________________| t
|_________________________| on
|_________________________| all
|______________________| this
|______________________| for
|______________________| had
|_____________________| but
|____________________| be
|____________________| not
|___________________| they
|__________________| so
$ sed 's/you/superlongstring/gI' 11.txt | gawk -f wordfreq.awk.min
 ______________________________________________________________________
|______________________________________________________________________| she
|_____________________________________________________________| superlongstring
|__________________________________________________________| said
|__________________________________________________| alice
|____________________________________________| was
|_________________________________________| that
|_________________________________| as
|______________________________| her
|___________________________| with
|___________________________| at
|__________________________| s
|__________________________| t
|________________________| on
|________________________| all
|_____________________| this
|_____________________| for
|_____________________| had
|____________________| but
|___________________| be
|___________________| not
|__________________| they
|_________________| so

Readable; 633 characters (originally 949):

{
    gsub("[^a-zA-Z]"," ");
    for(;NF;NF--)
	a[tolower($NF)]++
}
END{
    # remove "short" words
    split("the and of to a i it in or is",b," ");
    for (w in b) 
	delete a[b[w]];
    # Find the bar ratio
    d=1;
    for (w in a) {
 	e=a[w]/(78-length(w));
 	if (e>d)
 	    d=e
    }
    # Print the entries highest count first
    for (i=22; i; --i){				  
	# find the highest count
	e=0;
	for (w in a) 
	    if (a[w]>e)
		e=a[x=w];
        # Print the bar
	l=a[x]/d-2;
	# make a string of "_" the right length
	t=sprintf(sprintf("%%%dc",l)," ");
	gsub(" ","_",t);
	if (i==22) print" "t;
	print"|"t"| "x;
	delete a[x]
    }
}

Solution 22 - Language Agnostic

sh (+curl), partial* solution

This is incomplete, but for the hell of it, here's the word-frequency counting half of the problem in 192 bytes:

curl -s http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11.txt|sed -e 's@[^a-z]@\n@gi'|tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'|egrep -v '(^[^a-z]*$|\b(the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)\b)' |sort|uniq -c|sort -n|tail -n 22

Solution 23 - Language Agnostic

Common LISP, 670 characters

I'm a LISP newbie, and this is an attempt using an hash table for counting (so probably not the most compact method).

(flet((r()(let((x(read-char t nil)))(and x(char-downcase x)))))(do((c(
make-hash-table :test 'equal))(w NIL)(x(r)(r))y)((not x)(maphash(lambda
(k v)(if(not(find k '("""the""and""of""to""a""i""it""in""or""is"):test
'equal))(push(cons k v)y)))c)(setf y(sort y #'> :key #'cdr))(setf y
(subseq y 0(min(length y)22)))(let((f(apply #'min(mapcar(lambda(x)(/(-
76.0(length(car x)))(cdr x)))y))))(flet((o(n)(dotimes(i(floor(* n f)))
(write-char #\_))))(write-char #\Space)(o(cdar y))(write-char #\Newline)
(dolist(x y)(write-char #\|)(o(cdr x))(format t "| ~a~%"(car x))))))
(cond((char<= #\a x #\z)(push x w))(t(incf(gethash(concatenate 'string(
reverse w))c 0))(setf w nil)))))

can be run on for example with cat alice.txt | clisp -C golf.lisp.

In readable form is

(flet ((r () (let ((x (read-char t nil)))
               (and x (char-downcase x)))))
  (do ((c (make-hash-table :test 'equal))  ; the word count map
       w y                                 ; current word and final word list
       (x (r) (r)))  ; iteration over all chars
       ((not x)

        ; make a list with (word . count) pairs removing stopwords
        (maphash (lambda (k v)
                   (if (not (find k '("" "the" "and" "of" "to"
                                      "a" "i" "it" "in" "or" "is")
                                  :test 'equal))
                       (push (cons k v) y)))
                 c)

        ; sort and truncate the list
        (setf y (sort y #'> :key #'cdr))
        (setf y (subseq y 0 (min (length y) 22)))

        ; find the scaling factor
        (let ((f (apply #'min
                        (mapcar (lambda (x) (/ (- 76.0 (length (car x)))
                                               (cdr x)))
                                y))))
          ; output
          (flet ((outx (n) (dotimes (i (floor (* n f))) (write-char #\_))))
             (write-char #\Space)
             (outx (cdar y))
             (write-char #\Newline)
             (dolist (x y)
               (write-char #\|)
               (outx (cdr x))
               (format t "| ~a~%" (car x))))))

       ; add alphabetic to current word, and bump word counter
       ; on non-alphabetic
       (cond
        ((char<= #\a x #\z)
         (push x w))
        (t
         (incf (gethash (concatenate 'string (reverse w)) c 0))
         (setf w nil)))))

Solution 24 - Language Agnostic

C (828)

It looks alot like obfuscated code, and uses glib for string, list and hash. Char count with wc -m says 828 . It does not consider single-char words. To calculate the max length of the bar, it consider the longest possible word among all, not only the first 22. Is this a deviation from the spec?

It does not handle failures and it does not release used memory.

#include <glib.h>
#define S(X)g_string_##X
#define H(X)g_hash_table_##X
GHashTable*h;int m,w=0,z=0;y(const void*a,const void*b){int*A,*B;A=H(lookup)(h,a);B=H(lookup)(h,b);return*B-*A;}void p(void*d,void*u){int *v=H(lookup)(h,d);if(w<22){g_printf("|");*v=*v*(77-z)/m;while(--*v>=0)g_printf("=");g_printf("| %s\n",d);w++;}}main(c){int*v;GList*l;GString*s=S(new)(NULL);h=H(new)(g_str_hash,g_str_equal);char*n[]={"the","and","of","to","it","in","or","is"};while((c=getchar())!=-1){if(isalpha(c))S(append_c)(s,tolower(c));else{if(s->len>1){for(c=0;c<8;c++)if(!strcmp(s->str,n[c]))goto x;if((v=H(lookup)(h,s->str))!=NULL)++*v;else{z=MAX(z,s->len);v=g_malloc(sizeof(int));*v=1;H(insert)(h,g_strdup(s->str),v);}}x:S(truncate)(s,0);}}l=g_list_sort(H(get_keys)(h),y);m=*(int*)H(lookup)(h,g_list_first(l)->data);g_list_foreach(l,p,NULL);}

Solution 25 - Language Agnostic

Perl, 185 char

~~200 (slightly broken)~~ ~~199~~ ~~197~~ ~~195~~ ~~193~~ ~~187~~ 185 characters. Last two newlines are significant. Complies with the spec.

map$X{+lc}+=!/^(.|the|and|to|i[nst]|o[rf])$/i,/[a-z]+/gfor<>;
$n=$n>($:=$X{$_}/(76-y+++c))?$n:$:for@w=(sort{$X{$b}-$X{$a}}%X)[0..21];
die map{$U='_'x($X{$_}/$n);" $U
"x!$z++,"|$U| $_
"}@w

First line loads counts of valid words into %X.

The second line computes minimum scaling factor so that all output lines will be <= 80 characters.

The third line (contains two newline characters) produces the output.

Solution 26 - Language Agnostic

Java - 886 865 756 744 742 744 752 742 714 680 chars

Updates before first 742: improved regex, removed superfluous parameterized types, removed superfluous whitespace.
Update 742 > 744 chars: fixed the fixed-length hack. It's only dependent on the 1st word, not other words (yet). Found several places to shorten the code (\\s in regex replaced by and ArrayList replaced by Vector). I'm now looking for a short way to remove the Commons IO dependency and reading from stdin.
Update 744 > 752 chars: I removed the commons dependency. It now reads from stdin. Paste the text in stdin and hit Ctrl+Z to get result.
Update 752 > 742 chars: I removed public and a space, made classname 1 char instead of 2 and it's now ignoring one-letter words.
Update 742 > 714 chars: Updated as per comments of Carl: removed redundant assignment (742 > 730), replaced m.containsKey(k) by m.get(k)!=null (730 > 728), introduced substringing of line (728 > 714).
Update 714 > 680 chars: Updated as per comments of Rotsor: improved bar size calculation to remove unnecessary casting and improved split() to remove unnecessary replaceAll().

import java.util.*;class F{public static void main(String[]a)throws Exception{StringBuffer b=new StringBuffer();for(int c;(c=System.in.read())>0;b.append((char)c));final Map<String,Integer>m=new HashMap();for(String w:b.toString().toLowerCase().split("(\\b(.|the|and|of|to|i[tns]|or)\\b|\\W)+"))m.put(w,m.get(w)!=null?m.get(w)+1:1);List<String>l=new Vector(m.keySet());Collections.sort(l,new Comparator(){public int compare(Object l,Object r){return m.get(r)-m.get(l);}});int c=76-l.get(0).length();String s=new String(new char[c]).replace('\0','_');System.out.println(" "+s);for(String w:l.subList(0,22))System.out.println("|"+s.substring(0,m.get(w)*c/m.get(l.get(0)))+"| "+w);}}

Solution 27 - Language Agnostic

Scala, 368 chars

First, a legible version in 592 characters:

object Alice {
  def main(args:Array[String]) {
    val s = io.Source.fromFile(args(0))
    val words = s.getLines.flatMap("(?i)\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)".r.findAllIn(_)).map(_.toLowerCase)
    val freqs = words.foldLeft(Map[String, Int]())((countmap, word)  => countmap + (word -> (countmap.getOrElse(word, 0)+1)))
    val sortedFreqs = freqs.toList.sort((a, b)  => a._2 > b._2)
    val top22 = sortedFreqs.take(22)
    val highestWord = top22.head._1
    val highestCount = top22.head._2
    val widest = 76 - highestWord.length
    println(" " + "_" * widest)
    top22.foreach(t => {
      val width = Math.round((t._2 * 1.0 / highestCount) * widest).toInt
      println("|" + "_" * width + "| " + t._1)
    })
  }
}

The console output looks like this:

$ scalac alice.scala 
$ scala Alice aliceinwonderland.txt
 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|____________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| at
|______________________________| with
|_____________________________| s
|_____________________________| t
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|___________________| what

We can do some aggressive minifying and get it down to 415 characters:

object A{def main(args:Array[String]){val l=io.Source.fromFile(args(0)).getLines.flatMap("(?i)\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)".r.findAllIn(_)).map(_.toLowerCase).foldLeft(Map[String, Int]())((c,w)=>c+(w->(c.getOrElse(w,0)+1))).toList.sort((a,b)=>a._2>b._2).take(22);println(" "+"_"*(76-l.head._1.length));l.foreach(t=>println("|"+"_"*Math.round((t._2*1.0/l.head._2)*(76-l.head._1.length)).toInt+"| "+t._1))}}

The console session looks like this:

$ scalac a.scala 
$ scala A aliceinwonderland.txt
 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|____________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| at
|______________________________| with
|_____________________________| s
|_____________________________| t
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|___________________| what

I'm sure a Scala expert could do even better.

Update: In the comments Thomas gave an even shorter version, at 368 characters:

object A{def main(a:Array[String]){val t=(Map[String, Int]()/:(for(x<-io.Source.fromFile(a(0)).getLines;y<-"(?i)\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)".r findAllIn x) yield y.toLowerCase).toList)((c,x)=>c+(x->(c.getOrElse(x,0)+1))).toList.sortBy(_._2).reverse.take(22);val w=76-t.head._1.length;print(" "+"_"*w);t map (s=>"\n|"+"_"*(s._2*w/t.head._2)+"| "+s._1) foreach print}}

Legibly, at 375 characters:

object Alice {
  def main(a:Array[String]) {
    val t = (Map[String, Int]() /: (
      for (
        x <- io.Source.fromFile(a(0)).getLines
        y <- "(?i)\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)".r.findAllIn(x)
      ) yield y.toLowerCase
    ).toList)((c, x) => c + (x -> (c.getOrElse(x, 0) + 1))).toList.sortBy(_._2).reverse.take(22)
    val w = 76 - t.head._1.length
    print (" "+"_"*w)
    t.map(s => "\n|" + "_" * (s._2 * w / t.head._2) + "| " + s._1).foreach(print)
  }
}

Solution 28 - Language Agnostic

Scala 2.8, 311 314 320 330 332 336 341 375 characters

including long word adjustment. Ideas borrowed from the other solutions.

Now as a script (a.scala):

val t="\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)".r.findAllIn(io.Source.fromFile(argv(0)).mkString.toLowerCase).toSeq.groupBy(w=>w).mapValues(_.size).toSeq.sortBy(-_._2)take 22
def b(p:Int)="_"*(p*(for((w,c)<-t)yield(76.0-w.size)/c).min).toInt
println(" "+b(t(0)._2))
for(p<-t)printf("|%s| %s \n",b(p._2),p._1)

Run with

scala -howtorun:script a.scala alice.txt

BTW, the edit from 314 to 311 characters actually removes only 1 character. Someone got the counting wrong before (Windows CRs?).

Solution 29 - Language Agnostic

Clojure 282 strict

(let[[[_ m]:as s](->>(slurp *in*).toLowerCase(re-seq #"\w+\b(?<!\bthe|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)")frequencies(sort-by val >)(take 22))[b](sort(map #(/(- 76(count(key %)))(val %))s))p #(do(print %1)(dotimes[_(* b %2)](print \_))(apply println %&))](p " " m)(doseq[[k v]s](p \| v \| k)))

Somewhat more legibly:

(let[[[_ m]:as s](->> (slurp *in*)
                   .toLowerCase
                   (re-seq #"\w+\b(?<!\bthe|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)")
                   frequencies
                   (sort-by val >)
                   (take 22))
     [b] (sort (map #(/ (- 76 (count (key %)))(val %)) s))
     p #(do
          (print %1)
          (dotimes[_(* b %2)] (print \_))
          (apply println %&))]
  (p " " m)
  (doseq[[k v] s] (p \| v \| k)))

Solution 30 - Language Agnostic

Java - 896 chars

931 chars

1233 chars made unreadable

1977 chars "uncompressed"

Update: I have aggressively reduced the character count. Omits single-letter words per updated spec.

I envy C# and LINQ so much.

import java.util.*;import java.io.*;import static java.util.regex.Pattern.*;class g{public static void main(String[] a)throws Exception{PrintStream o=System.out;Map<String,Integer> w=new HashMap();Scanner s=new Scanner(new File(a[0])).useDelimiter(compile("[^a-z]+|\\b(the|and|of|to|.|it|in|or|is)\\b",2));while(s.hasNext()){String z=s.next().trim().toLowerCase();if(z.equals(""))continue;w.put(z,(w.get(z)==null?0:w.get(z))+1);}List<Integer> v=new Vector(w.values());Collections.sort(v);List<String> q=new Vector();int i,m;i=m=v.size()-1;while(q.size()<22){for(String t:w.keySet())if(!q.contains(t)&&w.get(t).equals(v.get(i)))q.add(t);i--;}int r=80-q.get(0).length()-4;String l=String.format("%1$0"+r+"d",0).replace("0","_");o.println(" "+l);o.println("|"+l+"| "+q.get(0)+" ");for(i=m-1;i>m-22;i--){o.println("|"+l.substring(0,(int)Math.round(r*(v.get(i)*1.0)/v.get(m)))+"| "+q.get(m-i)+" ");}}}

"Readable":

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import static java.util.regex.Pattern.*;
class g
{
   public static void main(String[] a)throws Exception
      {
      PrintStream o = System.out;
      Map<String,Integer> w = new HashMap();
      Scanner s = new Scanner(new File(a[0]))
         .useDelimiter(compile("[^a-z]+|\\b(the|and|of|to|.|it|in|or|is)\\b",2));
      while(s.hasNext())
      {
         String z = s.next().trim().toLowerCase();
         if(z.equals(""))
            continue;
         w.put(z,(w.get(z) == null?0:w.get(z))+1);
      }
      List<Integer> v = new Vector(w.values());
      Collections.sort(v);
      List<String> q = new Vector();
      int i,m;
      i = m = v.size()-1;
      while(q.size()<22)
      {
         for(String t:w.keySet())
            if(!q.contains(t)&&w.get(t).equals(v.get(i)))
               q.add(t);
         i--;
      }
      int r = 80-q.get(0).length()-4;
      String l = String.format("%1$0"+r+"d",0).replace("0","_");
      o.println(" "+l);
      o.println("|"+l+"| "+q.get(0)+" ");
      for(i = m-1; i > m-22; i--)
      {
         o.println("|"+l.substring(0,(int)Math.round(r*(v.get(i)*1.0)/v.get(m)))+"| "+q.get(m-i)+" ");
      }
   }
}

Output of Alice:

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|____________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| with
|______________________________| at
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|________________________| this
|________________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|___________________| what

Output of Don Quixote (also from Gutenberg):

 ________________________________________________________________________
|________________________________________________________________________| that
|________________________________________________________| he
|______________________________________________| for
|__________________________________________| his
|________________________________________| as
|__________________________________| with
|_________________________________| not
|_________________________________| was
|________________________________| him
|______________________________| be
|___________________________| don
|_________________________| my
|_________________________| this
|_________________________| all
|_________________________| they
|________________________| said
|_______________________| have
|_______________________| me
|______________________| on
|______________________| so
|_____________________| you
|_____________________| quixote

Solution 31 - Language Agnostic

C++, 647 chars

I don't expect to score highly by using C++, but nevermind that. I'm pretty sure it hits all the requirements. Note that I used the C++0x auto keyword for variable declaration, so adjust your complier appropriately if you decide to test my code.

Minimised version

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
#include <map>
using namespace std;
#define C string
#define S(x)v=F/a,cout<<#x<<C(v,'_')
#define F t->first
#define G t->second
#define O &&F!=
#define L for(i=22;i-->0;--t)
int main(){map<C,int>f;char d[230];int i=1,v;for(;i<256;i++)d[i<123?i-1:i-27]=i;d[229]=0;char w[99];while(cin>>w){for(i=0;w[i];i++)w[i]=tolower(w[i]);char*p=strtok(w,d);while(p)++f[p],p=strtok(0,d);}multimap<int,C>c;for(auto t=f.end();--t!=f.begin();)if(F!="the"O"and"O"of"O"to"O"a"O"i"O"it"O"in"O"or"O"is")c.insert(pair<int,C>(G,F));auto t=--c.end();float a=0,A;L A=F/(76.0-G.length()),a=a>A?a:A;t=--c.end();S( );L S(\n|)<<"| "<<G;}

Here's a second version that is more "C++" by using string, not char[] and strtok. It's a bit larger, at 669 (+22 vs above), but I can't get it smaller at the moment so thought I'd post it anyway.

#include <iostream>
#include <map>
using namespace std;
#define C string
#define S(x)v=F/a,cout<<#x<<C(v,'_')
#define F t->first
#define G t->second
#define O &&F!=
#define L for(i=22;i-->0;--t)
#define E e=w.find_first_of(d,g);g=w.find_first_not_of(d,e);
int main(){map<C,int>f;int i,v;C w,x,d="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";while(cin>>w){for(i=w.size();i-->0;)w[i]=tolower(w[i]);unsigned g=0,E while(g-e>0){x=w.substr(e,g-e),++f[x],E}}multimap<int,C>c;for(auto t=f.end();--t!=f.begin();)if(F!="the"O"and"O"of"O"to"O"a"O"i"O"it"O"in"O"or"O"is")c.insert(pair<int,C>(G,F));auto t=--c.end();float a=0,A;L A=F/(76.0-G.length()),a=a>A?a:A;t=--c.end();S( );L S(\n|)<<"| "<<G;}

I've removed the full version, because I can't be bothered to keep updating it with my tweaks to the minimised version. See edit history if you're interested in the (possibly outdated) long version.

Solution 32 - Language Agnostic

Yet another python 2.x - 206 chars (or 232 with 'width bar')

I believe this one if fully compliant with the question. Ignore list is here, it fully checks for line length (see exemple where I replaced Alice by Aliceinwonderlandbylewiscarroll througout the text making the fifth item the longest line. Even the filename is provided from command line instead of hardcoded (hardcoding it would remove about 10 chars). It has one drawback (but I believe it's ok with the question) as it compute an integer divider to make line shorter than 80 chars, the longest line is shorter than 80 characters, not exactly 80 characters. The python 3.x version does not have this defect (but is way longer).

Also I believe it is not so hard to read.

import sys,re
t=re.split("\W+(?:(?:the|and|o[fr]|to|a|i[tns]?)\W+)*",sys.stdin.read().lower())
b=sorted((-t.count(x),x)for x in set(t))[:22]
for l,w in b:print"|"+l/min(z/(78-len(e))for z,e in b)*'-'+"|",w

|----------------------------------------------------------------| she
|--------------------------------------------------------| you
|-----------------------------------------------------| said
|----------------------------------------------| aliceinwonderlandbylewiscarroll
|-----------------------------------------| was
|--------------------------------------| that
|-------------------------------| as
|----------------------------| her
|--------------------------| at
|--------------------------| with
|-------------------------| s
|-------------------------| t
|-----------------------| on
|-----------------------| all
|---------------------| this
|--------------------| for
|--------------------| had
|--------------------| but
|-------------------| be
|-------------------| not
|------------------| they
|-----------------| so

As it is not clear if we must print the max bar alone on it's line (like in sample output). Below is another one that do it, but 232 chars.

import sys,re
t=re.split("\W+(?:(?:the|and|o[fr]|to|a|i[tns]?)\W+)*",sys.stdin.read().lower())
b=sorted((-t.count(x),x)for x in set(t))[:22]
f=min(z/(78-len(e))for z,e in b)
print"",b[0][0]/f*'-'
for y,w in b:print"|"+y/f*'-'+"|",w

Python 3.x - 256 chars

Using Counter class from python 3.x, there was high hopes to make it shorter (as Counter does everything that we need here). It comes out it's not better. Below is my trial 266 chars:

import sys,re,collections as c
b=c.Counter(re.split("\W+(?:(?:the|and|o[fr]|to|a|i[tns]?)\W+)*",
sys.stdin.read().lower())).most_common(22)
F=lambda p,x,w:print(p+'-'*int(x/max(z/(77.-len(e))for e,z in b))+w)
F(" ",b[0][1],"")
for w,y in b:F("|",y,"| "+w)

The problem is that collections and most_common are very long words and even Counter is not short... really, not using Counter makes code only 2 characters longer ;-(

python 3.x also introduce other constraints : dividing two integers is not an integer any more (so we have to cast to int), print is now a function (must add parenthesis), etc. That's why it comes out 22 characters longer than python2.x version, but way faster. Maybe some more experimented python 3.x coder will have ideas to shorten the code.

Solution 33 - Language Agnostic

Java - 991 chars _{^{(incl newlines and indentations)}}

I took the code of @seanizer, fixed a bug (he omitted the 1st output line), made some improvements to make the code more 'golfy'.

import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
public class WF{
 public static void main(String[] a)throws Exception{
  String t=IOUtils.toString(new java.net.URL(a[0]).openStream());
  class W implements Comparable<W> {
   String w;int f=1;W(String W){w=W;}public int compareTo(W o){return o.f-f;}
   String d(float r){char[]c=new char[(int)(f/r)];Arrays.fill(c,'_');return "|"+new String(c)+"| "+w;}
  }
  Map<String,W>M=new HashMap<String,W>();
  Matcher m=Pattern.compile("\\b\\w+\\b").matcher(t.toLowerCase());
  while(m.find()){String w=m.group();W W=M.get(w);if(W==null)M.put(w,new W(w));else W.f++;}
  M.keySet().removeAll(Arrays.asList("the,and,of,to,a,i,it,in,or,is".split(",")));
  List<W>L=new ArrayList<W>(M.values());Collections.sort(L);int l=76-L.get(0).w.length();
  System.out.println(" "+new String(new char[l]).replace('\0','_'));
  for(W w:L.subList(0,22))System.out.println(w.d((float)L.get(0).f/(float)l));
 }
}

Output:



|| she
|| you
|__________________________________________________________| said
|| alice
|| was
|| that
|__________________________________| as
|| her
|_________________________| with
|| at
|__________________________| s
|| t
|______________________| on
|| all
|___________________| this
|| for
|___________________| had
|| but
|______________| be
|| not
|| they
|_________________| so

Solution 34 - Language Agnostic

R 449 chars

can probably get shorter...

bar <- function(w, l)
	{
	b <- rep("-", l)
    s <- rep(" ", l)
    cat(" ", b, "\n|", s, "| ", w, "\n ", b, "\n", sep="")
	}

f <- "alice.txt"
e <- c("the", "and", "of", "to", "a", "i", "it", "in", "or", "is", "")
w <- unlist(lapply(readLines(file(f)), strsplit, s=" "))
w <- tolower(w)
w <- unlist(lapply(w, gsub, pa="[^a-z]", r=""))
u <- unique(w[!w %in% e])
n <- unlist(lapply(u, function(x){length(w[w==x])}))
o <- rev(order(n))
n <- n[o]
m <- 77 - max(unlist(lapply(u[1:22], nchar)))
n <- floor(m*n/n[1])
u <- u[o]

for (i in 1:22)
    bar(u[i], n[i])

Solution 35 - Language Agnostic

Groovy, 424 389 378 321 chars

replaced b=map.get(a) with b=map[a], replaced split with matcher / iterator

def r,s,m=[:],n=0;def p={println it};def w={"_".multiply it};(new URL(this.args[0]).text.toLowerCase()=~/\b\w+\b/).each{s=it;if(!(s==~/(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)/))m[s]=m[s]==null?1:m[s]+1};m.keySet().sort{a,b->m[b]<=>m[a]}.subList(0,22).each{k->if(n++<1){r=(m[k]/(76-k.length()));p" "+w(m[k]/r)};p"|"+w(m[k]/r)+"|"+k}

(executed as groovy script with the URL as cmd line arg. No imports required!)

Readable version here:

def r,s,m=[:],n=0;
def p={println it};
def w={"_".multiply it};
(new URL(this.args[0]).text.toLowerCase()
        =~ /\b\w+\b/
        ).each{
		s=it;
		if (!(s ==~/(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)/))
            m[s] = m[s] == null ? 1 : m[s] + 1
        };
    m.keySet()
        .sort{
            a,b -> m[b] <=> m[a]
        }
        .subList(0,22).each{
            k ->
                if( n++ < 1 ){
                    r=(m[k]/(76-k.length()));
                    p " " + w(m[k]/r)
                };
                p "|" + w(m[k]/r) + "|" + k
}

Solution 36 - Language Agnostic

Python 2.6, 273 269 267 266 characters.

(Edit: Props to ChristopheD for character-shaving suggestions)

import sys,re
t=re.findall('[a-z]+',"".join(sys.stdin).lower())
d=sorted((t.count(w),w)for w in set(t)-set("the and of to a i it in or is".split()))[:-23:-1]
r=min((78.-len(m[1]))/m[0]for m in d)
print'','_'*(int(d[0][0]*r-2))
for(a,b)in d:print"|"+"_"*(int(a*r-2))+"|",b

Output:

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|____________________________________________________________| said
|____________________________________________________| alice
|______________________________________________| was
|__________________________________________| that
|___________________________________| as
|_______________________________| her
|____________________________| with
|____________________________| at
|___________________________| s
|___________________________| t
|_________________________| on
|_________________________| all
|______________________| this
|______________________| for
|______________________| had
|_____________________| but
|____________________| be
|____________________| not
|___________________| they
|__________________| so

Solution 37 - Language Agnostic

MATLAB 335 ~~404~~ ~~410 bytes~~ ~~357 bytes.~~ ~~390 bytes.~~

The updated code is now 335 characters instead of 404, and seems to do well for both examples.

Original Message (For code of 404 characters)

This version is a bit longer, however, it will properly scale the length of the bars if there is a word that is ridiculously long so that none of the columns go over 80.

So, my code is 357 bytes without re-scaling, and 410 long with re-scaling.

A=textscan(fopen('11.txt'),'%s','delimiter',' 0123456789,.!?-_*^:;=+\\/(){}[]@&#$%~`|"''');
s=lower(A{1});s(cellfun('length', s)<2)=[];s(ismember(s,{'the','and','of','to','it','in','or','is'}))=[];
[w,~,i]=unique(s);N=hist(i,max(i)); [j,k]=sort(N,'descend'); b=k(1:22); n=cellfun('length',w(b));
q=80*N(b)'/N(k(1))+n; q=floor(q*78/max(q)-n); for i=1:22, fprintf('%s| %s\n',repmat('_',1,l(i)),w{k(i)});end

Results:

___________________________________________________________________________| she
_________________________________________________________________| you
______________________________________________________________| said
_______________________________________________________| alice
________________________________________________| was
____________________________________________| that
_____________________________________| as
_________________________________| her
______________________________| at
______________________________| with
____________________________| on
___________________________| all
_________________________| this
________________________| for
________________________| had
________________________| but
_______________________| be
_______________________| not
_____________________| they
____________________| so
___________________| very
___________________| what

For example, replacing all instances of "you" in the Alice in Wonderland text with "superlongstringofridiculousness", my code will correctly scale the results:

____________________________________________________________________| she
_________________________________________________________| superlongstringstring
________________________________________________________| said
_________________________________________________| alice
____________________________________________| was
________________________________________| that
_________________________________| as
______________________________| her
___________________________| with
___________________________| at
_________________________| on
________________________| all
_____________________| this
_____________________| for
_____________________| had
_____________________| but
____________________| be
____________________| not
__________________| they
__________________| so
_________________| very
_________________| what

Here is the updated code written a little bit more legibly:

A=textscan(fopen('t'),'%s','delimiter','':'@');
s=lower(A{1});
s(cellfun('length', s)<2|ismember(s,{'the','and','of','to','it','in','or','is'}))=[];
[w,~,i]=unique(s);
N=hist(i,max(i)); 
[j,k]=sort(N,'descend'); 
n=cellfun('length',w(k));
q=80*N(k)'/N(k(1))+n; 
q=floor(q*78/max(q)-n); 
for i=1:22, 
    fprintf('%s| %s\n',repmat('_',1,q(i)),w{k(i)});
end

Solution 38 - Language Agnostic

Shell, 228 characters , with 80 chars constraint working

tr A-Z a-z|tr -Cs a-z "\n"|sort|egrep -v "^(the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)$" |uniq -c|sort -r|head -22>g n=1 while : do awk '{printf "|%0s| %s\n",$1'$n'/1e3,"",$2;}' g|tr 0 _>o egrep -q .{80} o&&break n=$((n+1)) done cat o

I'm surprised nobody seems to have used the amazing * feature of printf.

cat 11-very.txt > golf.sh

|__________________________________________________________________________| she
|________________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|______________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|____________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| with
|______________________________| at
|_____________________________| s
|_____________________________| t
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|________________________| this
|_______________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so

cat 11 | golf.sh

|_________________________________________________________________| she
|_________________________________________________________| verylongstringstring
|______________________________________________________| said
|_______________________________________________| alice
|__________________________________________| was
|_______________________________________| that
|________________________________| as
|_____________________________| her
|___________________________| with
|___________________________| at
|__________________________| s
|_________________________| t
|________________________| on
|_______________________| all
|_____________________| this
|_____________________| for
|_____________________| had
|____________________| but
|___________________| be
|___________________| not
|__________________| they
|__________________| so

Solution 39 - Language Agnostic

Scala, 327 characters

This was adapted from mkneissl's answer inspired by a Python version, though it is bigger. I'm leaving it here in case someone can make it shorter.

val f="\\w+\\b(?<!\\bthe|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)".r.findAllIn(io.Source.fromFile("11.txt").mkString.toLowerCase).toSeq
val t=f.toSet[String].map(x=> -f.count(x==)->x).toSeq.sorted take 22
def b(p:Int)="_"*(-p/(for((c,w)<-t)yield-c/(76.0-w.size)).max).toInt
println(" "+b(t(0)._1))
for(p<-t)printf("|%s| %s \n",b(p._1),p._2)

Solution 40 - Language Agnostic

Clojure - 611 chars (not minimized)

I tried writing the code in as much idiomatic Clojure as I could so late in the night. I am not too proud of the draw-chart function, but I guess the code will speak volumes of the succinctness of Clojure.

(ns word-freq
(:require [clojure.contrib.io :as io]))

(defn word-freq
  [f]
  (take 22 (->> f
                io/read-lines ;;; slurp should work too, but I love map/red
                (mapcat (fn [l] (map #(.toLowerCase %) (re-seq #"\w+" l))))
                (remove #{"the" "and" "of" "to" "a" "i" "it" "in" "or" "is"})
                (reduce #(assoc %1 %2 (inc (%1 %2 0))) {})
                (sort-by (comp - val)))))

(defn draw-chart
  [fs]
  (let [[[w f] & _] fs]
    (apply str
           (interpose \newline
                      (map (fn [[k v]] (apply str (concat "|" (repeat (int (* (- 76 (count w)) (/ v f 1))) "_") "| " k " ")) ) fs)))))

;;; (println (draw-chart (word-freq "/Users/ghoseb/Desktop/alice.txt")))

Output:

|_________________________________________________________________________| she 
|_______________________________________________________________| you 
|____________________________________________________________| said 
|____________________________________________________| alice 
|_______________________________________________| was 
|___________________________________________| that 
|____________________________________| as 
|________________________________| her 
|_____________________________| with 
|_____________________________| at 
|____________________________| t 
|____________________________| s 
|__________________________| on 
|__________________________| all 
|_______________________| for 
|_______________________| had 
|_______________________| this 
|_______________________| but 
|______________________| be 
|_____________________| not 
|____________________| they 
|____________________| so

I know, this doesn't follow the spec, but hey, this is some very clean Clojure code which is already so small :)

Solution 41 - Language Agnostic

Java, slowly getting shorter (~~1500~~ ~~1358~~ ~~1241~~ ~~1020~~ ~~913~~ 890 chars)

stripped even more white space and var name length. removed generics where possible, removed inline class and try/catch block too bad, my 900 version had a bug removed another try / catch block

import java.net.*;import java.util.*;import java.util.regex.*;import org.apache.commons.io.*;public class G{public static void main(String[]a)throws Exception{String text=IOUtils.toString(new URL(a[0]).openStream()).toLowerCase().replaceAll("\\b(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\\b","");final Map<String,Integer>p=new HashMap();Matcher m=Pattern.compile("\\b\\w+\\b").matcher(text);Integer b;while(m.find()){String w=m.group();b=p.get(w);p.put(w,b==null?1:b+1);}List<String>v=new Vector(p.keySet());Collections.sort(v,new Comparator(){public int compare(Object l,Object m){return p.get(m)-p.get(l);}});boolean t=true;float r=0;for(String w:v.subList(0,22)){if(t){t=false;r=p.get(w)/(float)(80-(w.length()+4));System.out.println(" "+new String(new char[(int)(p.get(w)/r)]).replace('\0','_'));}System.out.println("|"+new String(new char[(int)(((Integer)p.get(w))/r)]).replace('\0','_')+"|"+w);}}}

Readable version:

import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
import org.apache.commons.io.*;

public class G{

    public static void main(String[] a) throws Exception{
        String text =
            IOUtils.toString(new URL(a[0]).openStream())
                .toLowerCase()
                .replaceAll("\\b(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\\b", "");
        final Map<String, Integer> p = new HashMap();
        Matcher m = Pattern.compile("\\b\\w+\\b").matcher(text);
        Integer b;
        while(m.find()){
            String w = m.group();
            b = p.get(w);
            p.put(w, b == null ? 1 : b + 1);
        }
        List<String> v = new Vector(p.keySet());
        Collections.sort(v, new Comparator(){

            public int compare(Object l, Object m){
                return p.get(m) - p.get(l);
            }
        });
        boolean t = true;
        float r = 0;
        for(String w : v.subList(0, 22)){
            if(t){
                t = false;
                r = p.get(w) / (float) (80 - (w.length() + 4));
                System.out.println(" "
                    + new String(new char[(int) (p.get(w) / r)]).replace('\0',
                        '_'));
            }
            System.out.println("|"
                + new String(new char[(int) (((Integer) p.get(w)) / r)]).replace('\0',
                    '_') + "|" + w);
        }
    }
}

Solution 42 - Language Agnostic

Javascript, 348 characters

After I finished mine, I stole some ideas from Matt :3

t=prompt().toLowerCase().replace(/\b(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)\b/gm,'');r={};o=[];t.replace(/\b([a-z]+)\b/gm,function(a,w){r[w]?++r[w]:r[w]=1});for(i in r){o.push([i,r[i]])}m=o[0][1];o=o.slice(0,22);o.sort(function(F,D){return D[1]-F[1]});for(B in o){F=o[B];L=new Array(~~(F[1]/m*(76-F[0].length))).join('_');print(' '+L+'\n|'+L+'| '+F[0]+' \n')}

Requires print and prompt function support.

Solution 43 - Language Agnostic

Gotta love the big ones...Objective-C (~~1070~~ ~~931~~ 905 chars)

#define S NSString
#define C countForObject
#define O objectAtIndex
#define U stringWithCString
main(int g,char**b){id c=[NSCountedSet set];S*d=[S stringWithContentsOfFile:[S U:b[1]]];id p=[NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF MATCHES[cd]'(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)|[^a-z]'"];[d enumerateSubstringsInRange:NSMakeRange(0,[d length])options:NSStringEnumerationByWords usingBlock:^(S*s,NSRange x,NSRange y,BOOL*z){if(![p evaluateWithObject:s])[c addObject:[s lowercaseString]];}];id s=[[c allObjects]sortedArrayUsingComparator:^(id a,id b){return(NSComparisonResult)([c C:b]-[c C:a]);}];g=[c C:[s O:0]];int j=76-[[s O:0]length];char*k=malloc(80);memset(k,'_',80);S*l=[S U:k length:80];printf(" %s\n",[[l substringToIndex:j]cString]),[[s subarrayWithRange:NSMakeRange(0,22)]enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id a,NSUInteger x,BOOL*y){printf("|%s| %s\n",[[l substringToIndex:[c C:a]*j/g]cString],[a cString]);}];}

Switched to using a lot of depreciate APIs, removed some memory management that wasn't needed, more aggressive whitespace removal

 _________________________________________________________________________
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|______________________________________________________________| said
|__________________________________________________________| you
|____________________________________________________| alice
|________________________________________________| was
|_______________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| with
|______________________________| at
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|________________________| this
|________________________| for
|________________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|__________________| what
|_________________| they

Solution 44 - Language Agnostic

Python, 320 characters

import sys
i="the and of to a i it in or is".split()
d={}
for j in filter(lambda x:x not in i,sys.stdin.read().lower().split()):d[j]=d.get(j,0)+1
w=sorted(d.items(),key=lambda x:x[1])[:-23:-1]
m=sorted(dict(w).values())[-1]
print" %s\n"%("_"*(76-m)),"\n".join(map(lambda x:("|%s| "+x[0])%("_"*((76-m)*x[1]/w[0][1])),w))

Solution 45 - Language Agnostic

R, 298 chars

f=scan("stdin","ch")
u=unlist
s=strsplit
a=u(s(u(s(tolower(f),"[^a-z]")),"^(the|and|of|to|it|in|or|is|.|)$"))
v=unique(a)
r=sort(sapply(v,function(i) sum(a==i)),T)[2:23]  #the first item is an empty string, just skipping it
w=names(r)
q=(78-max(nchar(w)))*r/max(r)
cat(" ",rep("_",q[1])," \n",sep="")
for(i in 1:22){cat("|",rep("_",q[i]),"| ",w[i],"\n",sep="")}

The output is:

 _________________________________________________________________________ 
|_________________________________________________________________________| she
|_______________________________________________________________| you
|____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|___________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|________________________________| her
|_____________________________| at
|_____________________________| with
|__________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|_______________________| this
|_______________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|_____________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so
|___________________| very
|__________________| what

And if "you" is replaced by something longer:

 ____________________________________________________________ 
|____________________________________________________________| she
|____________________________________________________| veryverylongstring
|__________________________________________________| said
|___________________________________________| alice
|______________________________________| was
|___________________________________| that
|_____________________________| as
|__________________________| her
|________________________| at
|________________________| with
|______________________| on
|_____________________| all
|___________________| this
|___________________| for
|___________________| had
|__________________| but
|__________________| be
|__________________| not
|________________| they
|________________| so
|_______________| very
|_______________| what

Solution 46 - Language Agnostic

Python 290, 255, 253

290 characters in python (text read from standard input)

import sys,re
c={}
for w in re.findall("[a-z]+",sys.stdin.read().lower()):c[w]=c.get(w,0)+1-(","+w+","in",a,i,the,and,of,to,it,in,or,is,")
r=sorted((-v,k)for k,v in c.items())[:22]
sf=max((76.0-len(k))/v for v,k in r)
print" "+"_"*int(r[0][0]*sf)
for v,k in r:print"|"+"_"*int(v*sf)+"| "+k

but... after reading other solutions I all of a sudden realized that efficiency was not a request; so this is another shorter and much slower one (255 characters)

import sys,re
w=re.findall("\w+",sys.stdin.read().lower())
r=sorted((-w.count(x),x)for x in set(w)-set("the and of to a i it in or is".split()))[:22]
f=max((76.-len(k))/v for v,k in r)
print" "+"_"*int(f*r[0][0])
for v,k in r:print"|"+"_"*int(f*v)+"| "+k

and after some more reading other solutions...

import sys,re
w=re.findall("\w+",sys.stdin.read().lower())
r=sorted((-w.count(x),x)for x in set(w)-set("the and of to a i it in or is".split()))[:22]
f=max((76.-len(k))/v for v,k in r)
print"","_"*int(f*r[0][0])
for v,k in r:print"|"+"_"*int(f*v)+"|",k

And now this solution is almost byte-per-byte identical to Astatine's one :-D

Solution 47 - Language Agnostic

Object Rexx 4.0 with PC-Pipes

Where the [PC-Pipes][1] library can be found.
This solution ignores single letter words.


address rxpipe 'pipe (end ?) < Alice.txt',
'|regex split /[^a-zA-Z]/', -- split at non alphbetic character
'|locate 2',                -- discard words shorter that 2 char

'|xlate lower',             -- translate all words to lower case
,                           -- discard list words that match list
'|regex not match /^(the||and||of||to||it||in||or||is)$/',
'|l:lookup autoadd before count',  -- accumulate and count words
'? l:',                       -- no master records to feed into lookup
'? l:',                       -- list of counted words comes here
,                           -- columns 1-10 hold count, 11-n hold word
'|sort 1.10 d',             -- sort in desending order by count
'|take 22',                 -- take first 22 records only
'|array wordlist',          -- store into a rexx array
'|count max',               -- get length of longest record
'|var maxword'              -- save into a rexx variable




parse value wordlist[1] with count 11 .  -- get frequency of first word
barunit = count % (76-(maxword-10))      -- frequency units per chart bar char




say ' '||copies('', (count+barunit)%barunit)  -- first line of the chart
do cntwd over wordlist

parse var cntwd count 11 word          -- get word frequency and the word
say '|'||copies('', (count+barunit)%barunit)||'| '||word||' '
end
say ' '||copies('', (count+barunit)%barunit)  -- first line of the chart
do cntwd over wordlist

parse var cntwd count 11 word          -- get word frequency and the word
say '|'||copies('', (count+barunit)%barunit)||'| '||word||' '
end

The output produced



|| she
|_________________________________________________________________| you
|| said
|________________________________________________________| alice
|| was
|| that
|________| as
|__| her
|____________________| at
|_______________________| with
|| on
|| all
|| this
|| for
|_________________| had
|_________________| but
|| be
|______________________| not
|| they
|____________________| so
|_________________| very
|___________________| what

[1]: http://ipages.iland.net/~jimj "PC-Pipes"

Solution 48 - Language Agnostic

Ruby, 205

This Ruby version handles "superlongstringstring". (The first two lines are almost identical to the previous Ruby programs.)

It must be run this way:

ruby -n0777 golf.rb Alice.txt

W=($_.upcase.scan(/\w+/)-%w(THE AND OF TO A I IT
IN OR IS)).group_by{|x|x}.map{|k,v|[-v.size,k]}.sort[0,22]
u=proc{|m|"_"*(W.map{|n,s|(76.0-s.size)/n}.max*m)}
puts" "+u[W[0][0]],W.map{|n,s|"|%s| "%u[n]+s}

The third line creates a closure or lambda that yields a correctly scaled string of underscores:

u = proc{|m|
"_" *
(W.map{|n,s| (76.0 - s.size)/n}.max * m)
}

.max is used instead of .min because the numbers are negative.

Solution 49 - Language Agnostic

Bourne shell, 213/240 characters

Improving on the shell version posted earlier, I can get it down to 213 characters:

tr A-Z a-z|tr -Cs a-z \\n|sort|egrep -v '^(the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)$'|uniq -c|sort -rn|sed 22q>g
n=1
>o
until egrep -q .{80} o
do
awk '{printf "|%0*d| %s\n",$1*'$n'/1e3,0,$2}' g|tr 0 _>o 
((n++))
done
cat o

In order to get the upper outline on the top bar, I had to expand it to 240 characters:

tr A-Z a-z|tr -Cs a-z \\n|sort|egrep -v "^(the|and|of|to|a|i|it|in|or|is)$"|uniq -c|sort -r|sed 1p\;22q>g
n=1
>o
until egrep -q .{80} o
do
awk '{printf "|%0*d| %s\n",$1*'$n'/1e3,0,NR==1?"":$2}' g|sed '1s,|, ,g'|tr 0 _>o 
((n++))
done
cat o

Solution 50 - Language Agnostic

shell, grep, tr, grep, sort, uniq, sort, head, perl - 194 chars

Adding some -i flags may drop the overly long tr A-Z a-z| step; the spec said nothing about the case displayed, and uniq -ci drops any case differences.

egrep -oi [a-z]+|egrep -wiv 'the|and|o[fr]|to|a|i[tns]?'|sort|uniq -ci|sort -nr|head -22|perl -lape'($f,$w)=@F;$.>1or($q,$x)=($f,76-length$w);$b="_"x($f/$q*$x);$_="|$b| $w ";$.>1or$_=" $b\n$_"'

That's minus 11 for the tr plus 2 for the -i's compared to the original 206 chars.

edit: minus 3 for the \\b which can be left out as pattern matching will commence on a boundary anyway.

sort gives lower case first, and uniq -ci takes the first occurence, so the only real change in output will be that Alice retains her upper case initial.

Solution 51 - Language Agnostic

Go, 613 chars, could probably be much smaller:

package main
import(r "regexp";. "bytes";. "io/ioutil";"os";st "strings";s "sort";. "container/vector")
type z struct{c int;w string}
func(e z)Less(o interface{})bool{return o.(z).c<e.c}
func main(){b,_:=ReadAll(os.Stdin);g:=r.MustCompile
c,m,x:=g("[A-Za-z]+").AllMatchesIter(b,0),map[string]int{},g("the|and|of|it|in|or|is|to")
for w:=range c{w=ToLower(w);if len(w)>1&&!x.Match(w){m[string(w)]++}}
o,y:=&Vector{},0
for k,v:=range m{o.Push(z{v,k});if v>y{y=v}}
s.Sort(o)
for i,v:=range *o{if i>21{break};x:=v.(z);c:=int(float(x.c)/float(y)*80)
u:=st.Repeat("_",c);if i<1{println(" "+u)};println("|"+u+"| "+x.w)}}

I feel so dirty.

Solution 52 - Language Agnostic

perl, 188 characters

The perl version above (as well as any regexp splitting based version) can get a few bytes shorter by including the list of forbidden words as negative lookahead assertions, rather than as a separate list. Furthermore the trailing semicolon can be left out.

I also included some other suggestions (- instead of <=>, for/foreach, dropped "keys") to get to

$c{$_}++for grep{$_}map{lc=~/\b(?!(?:the|and|a|of|or|i[nts]?|to)\b)[a-z]+/g}<>;@s=sort{$c{$b}-$c{$a}}%c;$f=76-length$s[0];say$"."_"x$f;say"|"."_"x($c{$_}/$c{$s[0]}*$f)."| $_ "for@s[0..21]

I don't know perl, but I presume that the (?!(?:...)\b) may lose the ?: if the handling around it is fixed.

Solution 53 - Language Agnostic

GNU Smalltalk (386)

I think it can be made a little bit shorter, but still no idea how.

|q s f m|q:=Bag new. f:=FileStream stdin. m:=0.[f atEnd]whileFalse:[s:=f nextLine.(s notNil)ifTrue:[(s tokenize:'\W+')do:[:i|(((i size)>1)&({'the'.'and'.'of'.'to'.'it'.'in'.'or'.'is'}includes:i)not)ifTrue:[q add:(i asLowercase)]. m:=m max:(i size)]]].(q:=q sortedByCount)from:1to:22 do:[:i|'|'display.((i key)*(77-m)//(q first key))timesRepeat:['='display].('| %1'%{i value})displayNl]

Solution 54 - Language Agnostic

Lua solution: 478 characters.

t,u={},{}for l in io.lines()do
for w in l:gmatch("%a+")do
w=w:lower()if not(" the and of to a i it in or is "):find(" "..w.." ")then
t[w]=1+(t[w]or 0)end
end
end
for k,v in next,t do
u[#u+1]={k,v}end
table.sort(u,function(a,b)return a[2]>b[2]end)m,n=u[1][2],math.min(#u,22)for w=80,1,-1 do
s=""for i=1,n do
a,b=u[i][1],w*u[i][2]/m
if b+#a>=78 then s=nil break end
s2=("_"):rep(b)if i==1 then
s=s.." " ..s2.."\n"end
s=s.."|"..s2.."| "..a.."\n"end
if s then print(s)break end end

Readable version:

t,u={},{}
for line in io.lines() do
	for w in line:gmatch("%a+") do
		w = w:lower()
		if not (" the and of to a i it in or is "):find(" "..w.." ") then
			t[w] = 1 + (t[w] or 0)
		end
	end
end
for k, v in pairs(t) do
	u[#u+1]={k, v}
end

table.sort(u, function(a, b)
	return a[2] > b[2]
end)

local max = u[1][2]
local n = math.min(#u, 22)

for w = 80, 1, -1 do
	s=""
	for i = 1, n do
		f = u[i][2]
		word = u[i][1]
		width = w * f / max
		if width + #word >= 78 then
			s=nil
			break
		end
		s2=("_"):rep(width)
		if i==1 then
			s=s.." " .. s2 .."\n"
		end
		s=s.."|" .. s2 .. "| " .. word.."\n"
	end
	if s then
		print(s)
		break
	end
end

Solution 55 - Language Agnostic

TCL 554 Strict

foreach w [regexp -all -inline {[a-z]+} [string tolower [read stdin]]] {if {[lsearch {the and of to it in or is a i} $w]>=0} {continue};if {[catch {incr Ws($w)}]} {set Ws($w) 1}}
set T [lrange [lsort -decreasing -stride 2 -index 1 -integer [array get Ws]] 0 43]
foreach {w c} $T {lappend L [string length $w];lappend C $c}
set N [tcl::mathfunc::max {*}$L]
set C [lsort -integer $C]
set M [lindex $C end]
puts " [string repeat _ [expr {int((76-$N) * [lindex $T 1] / $M)}]] "
foreach {w c} $T {puts "|[string repeat _ [expr {int((76-$N) * $c / $M)}]]| $w"}

Or, more legibly

foreach w [regexp -all -inline {[a-z]+} [string tolower [read stdin]]] {
    if {[lsearch {the and of to a i it in or is} $w] >= 0} { continue }
    if {[catch {incr words($w)}]} {
        set words($w) 1
    }
}
set topwords [lrange [lsort -decreasing -stride 2 -index 1 -integer [array get words]] 0 43]
foreach {word count} $topwords {
    lappend lengths [string length $word]
    lappend counts $count
}
set maxlength [lindex [lsort -integer $lengths] end]
set counts [lsort -integer $counts]
set mincount [lindex $counts 0].0
set maxcount [lindex $counts end].0
puts " [string repeat _ [expr {int((76-$maxlength) * [lindex $topwords 1] / $maxcount)}]] "
foreach {word count} $topwords {
    set barlength [expr {int((76-$maxlength) * $count / $maxcount)}]
    puts "|[string repeat _ $barlength]| $word"
}

Solution 56 - Language Agnostic

Another T-SQL solution borrowing some ideas from Martin's solution (min76- etc).

declare @ varchar(max),@w real,@j int;select s=@ into[ ]set @=(select*
from openrowset(bulk'a',single_blob)a)while @>''begin set @=stuff(@,1,
patindex('%[a-z]%',@)-1,'')+'.'set @j=patindex('%[^a-z]%',@)if @j>2insert[ ]
select lower(left(@,@j-1))set @=stuff(@,1,@j,'')end;select top(22)s,count(*)
c into # from[ ]where',the,and,of,to,it,in,or,is,'not like'%,'+s+',%'
group by s order by 2desc;select @w=min((76.-len(s))/c),@=' '+replicate(
'_',max(c)*@w)from #;select @=@+'
|'+replicate('_',c*@w)+'| '+s+' 'from #;print @

The entire solution should be on two lines (concatenate first 7), although you can cut, paste and run it as-is. Total characters = 507 (counting the line break as 1 if you save it in Unix format and execute using SQLCMD)

Assumptions:

There isn't a temp table #
There isn't a table named [ ]
The input is in the default system folder, e.g. C:\windows\system32\a
Your query window has 'set nocount on' active (prevent spurious "rows affected" msgs)

And to get onto the list of solutions (<500 char), here's the "relaxed" edition at 483 characters (No vertical bars / No top bar / No trailing space after word)

declare @ varchar(max),@w real,@j int;select s=@ into[ ]set @=(select*
from openrowset(bulk'b',single_blob)a)while @>''begin set @=stuff(@,1,
patindex('%[a-z]%',@)-1,'')+'.'set @j=patindex('%[^a-z]%',@)if @j>2insert[ ]
select lower(left(@,@j-1))set @=stuff(@,1,@j,'')end;select top(22)s,count(*)
c into # from[ ]where',the,and,of,to,it,in,or,is,'not like'%,'+s+',%'
group by s order by 2desc;select @w=min((78.-len(s))/c),@=''from #;select @=@+'
'+replicate('_',c*@w)+' '+s from #;print @

Readable version

declare @ varchar(max), @w real, @j int
select s=@ into[ ] -- shortcut to create table; use defined variable to specify column type
-- openrowset reads an entire file
set @=(select * from openrowset(bulk'a',single_blob) a) -- a bit shorter than naming 'BulkColumn'

while @>'' begin -- loop until input is empty
	set @=stuff(@,1,patindex('%[a-z]%',@)-1,'')+'.' -- remove lead up to first A-Z char *
	set @j=patindex('%[^a-z]%',@) -- find first non A-Z char. The +'.' above makes sure there is one
	if @j>2insert[ ] select lower(left(@,@j-1)) -- insert only words >1 char
	set @=stuff(@,1,@j,'') -- remove word and trailing non A-Z char
end;

select top(22)s,count(*)c
into #
from[ ]
where ',the,and,of,to,it,in,or,is,' not like '%,'+s+',%' -- exclude list
group by s
order by 2desc; -- highest occurence, assume no ties at 22!

-- 80 - 2 vertical bars - 2 spaces = 76
-- @w = weighted frequency
-- this produces a line equal to the length of the max occurence (max(c))
select @w=min((76.-len(s))/c),@=' '+replicate('_',max(c)*@w)
from #;

-- for each word, append it as a new line. note: embedded newline
select @=@+'
|'+replicate('_',c*@w)+'| '+s+' 'from #;
-- note: 22 words in a table should always fit on an 8k page
--       the order of processing should always be the same as the insert-orderby
--       thereby producing the correct output

print @ -- output

Solution 57 - Language Agnostic

Python, 250 chars

borrowing from all the other Python snippets

import re,sys
t=re.findall("\w+","".join(sys.stdin).lower())
W=sorted((-t.count(w),w)for w in set(t)-set("the and of to a i it in or is".split()))[:22]
Z,U=W[0],lambda n:"_"*int(n*(76.-len(Z[1]))/Z[0])
print"",U(Z[0])
for(n,w)in W:print"|"+U(n)+"|",w

If you're cheeky and put the words to avoid as arguments, 223 chars

import re,sys
t=re.findall("\w+","".join(sys.stdin).lower())
W=sorted((-t.count(w),w)for w in set(t)-set(sys.argv[1:]))[:22]
Z,U=W[0],lambda n:"_"*int(n*(76.-len(Z[1]))/Z[0])
print"",U(Z[0])
for(n,w)in W:print"|"+U(n)+"|",w

Output is:

> $ python alice4.py the and of to a i it in or is < 11.txt > _________________________________________________________________________ > || she > || you > |__________________________________________________________| said > || alice > || was > || that > |__________________________________| as > || her > |_________________________| at > || with > |__________________________| s > || t > |______________________| on > || all > |___________________| this > || for > |___________________| had > || but > |______________| be > || not > || they > |_________________| so

Solution 58 - Language Agnostic

Groovy, 250

Code:

m=[:]
(new URL(args[0]).text.toLowerCase()=~/\w+/).each{it==~/(the|and|of|to|a|i[tns]?|or)/?:(m[it]=1+(m[it]?:0))}
k=m.keySet().sort{a,b->m[b]<=>m[a]}
b={d,c,b->println d+'_'*c+d+' '+b}
b' ',z=77-k[0].size(),''
k[0..21].each{b'|',m[it]*z/m[k[0]],it}

Execution:

$ groovy wordcount.groovy http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11.txt

Output:

 __________________________________________________________________________  
|__________________________________________________________________________| she
|________________________________________________________________| you
|_____________________________________________________________| said
|_____________________________________________________| alice
|_______________________________________________| was
|____________________________________________| that
|____________________________________| as
|_________________________________| her
|______________________________| at
|______________________________| with
|_____________________________| s
|_____________________________| t
|___________________________| on
|__________________________| all
|________________________| this
|_______________________| for
|_______________________| had
|_______________________| but
|______________________| be
|______________________| not
|____________________| they
|____________________| so

N.B. this follows relaxed rules re: long strings

Solution 59 - Language Agnostic

Q,194

{t::y;{(-1')t#(.:)[b],'(!:)[b:"|",/:(((_)70*x%(*:)x)#\:"_"),\:"|"];}desc(#:')(=)($)(`$inter\:[(,/)" "vs'" "sv/:"'"vs'a(&)0<(#:')a:(_:')read0 -1!x;52#.Q.an])except`the`and`of`to`a`i`it`in`or`is`}

the function takes two arguments: one a file containing the text and the other is the number of lines of the chart to display

q){t::y;{(-1')t#(.:)[b],'(!:)[b:"|",/:(((_)70*x%(*:)x)#\:"_"),\:"|"];}desc(#:')(=)($)(`$inter\:[(,/)" "vs'" "sv/:"'"vs'a(&)0<(#:')a:(_:')read0 -1!x;52#.Q.an])except`the`and`of`to`a`i`it`in`or`is`}[`a.txt;20]

output

|______________________________________________________________________|she
|____________________________________________________________|you
|__________________________________________________________|said
|___________________________________________________|alice
|_____________________________________________|was
|_________________________________________|that
|__________________________________|as
|_______________________________|her
|_____________________________|with
|____________________________|at
|___________________________|t
|___________________________|s
|_________________________|on
|_________________________|all
|_______________________|this
|______________________|for
|______________________|had
|_____________________|but
|_____________________|be
|_____________________|not

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	ChristopheD	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Language Agnostic	Joe Z	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Language Agnostic	Ventero	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Language Agnostic	Nabb	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Language Agnostic	stor	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Language Agnostic	Martin Smith	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Language Agnostic	archgoon	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Language Agnostic	Dr. belisarius	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Language Agnostic	Paul Creasey	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Language Agnostic	JSBձոգչ	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Language Agnostic	Joey	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - Language Agnostic	Anurag	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - Language Agnostic	Nas Banov	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - Language Agnostic	Thomas	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - Language Agnostic	Matt	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Language Agnostic	pdehaan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - Language Agnostic	Sam Dolan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - Language Agnostic	user382874	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - Language Agnostic	Syntaera	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - Language Agnostic	Brian	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 20 - Language Agnostic	AKX	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 21 - Language Agnostic	dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 22 - Language Agnostic	Frank Farmer	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 23 - Language Agnostic	6502	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 24 - Language Agnostic	ShinTakezou	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 25 - Language Agnostic	mob	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 26 - Language Agnostic	BalusC	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 27 - Language Agnostic	pr1001	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 28 - Language Agnostic	mkneissl	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 29 - Language Agnostic	Alex Taggart	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 30 - Language Agnostic	Jonathon Faust	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 31 - Language Agnostic	DMA57361	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 32 - Language Agnostic	kriss	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 33 - Language Agnostic	BalusC	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 34 - Language Agnostic	nico	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 35 - Language Agnostic	Sean Patrick Floyd	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 36 - Language Agnostic	user382714	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 37 - Language Agnostic	reso	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 38 - Language Agnostic	mb14	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 39 - Language Agnostic	Daniel C. Sobral	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 40 - Language Agnostic	Baishampayan Ghose	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 41 - Language Agnostic	Sean Patrick Floyd	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 42 - Language Agnostic	user216441	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 43 - Language Agnostic	Joshua Weinberg	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 44 - Language Agnostic	dhruvbird	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 45 - Language Agnostic	Andrei	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 46 - Language Agnostic	6502	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 47 - Language Agnostic	user383340	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 48 - Language Agnostic	user383392	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 49 - Language Agnostic	user384075	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 50 - Language Agnostic	mvds	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 51 - Language Agnostic	user384098	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 52 - Language Agnostic	mvds	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 53 - Language Agnostic	ShinTakezou	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 54 - Language Agnostic	Kristofer	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 55 - Language Agnostic	RHSeeger	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 56 - Language Agnostic	RichardTheKiwi	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 57 - Language Agnostic	Will	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 58 - Language Agnostic	Armand	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 59 - Language Agnostic	tmartin	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Language Agnostic Problem Overview

The challenge:

Language Agnostic Solutions

Solution 1 - Language Agnostic

LabVIEW 51 nodes, 5 structures, 10 diagrams

Solution 2 - Language Agnostic

Ruby 1.9, 185 chars

Solution 3 - Language Agnostic

GolfScript, 177 175 173 167 164 163 144 131 130 chars

Solution 4 - Language Agnostic

206

shell, grep, tr, grep, sort, uniq, sort, head, perl

Solution 5 - Language Agnostic

Transact SQL set based solution (SQL Server 2005) 1063 892 873 853 827 820 783 683 647 644 630 characters

Solution 6 - Language Agnostic

Ruby 207 213 211 210 207 203 201 200 chars

Solution 7 - Language Agnostic

Mathematica (297 284 248 244 242 199 chars) Pure Functional

and Zipf's Law Testing

Zipf's Law Testing

Edit 6 > (242 Chars)

Edit 7 → 199 characters

Solution 8 - Language Agnostic

C# - 510 451 436 446 434 426 422 chars (minified)

Solution 9 - Language Agnostic

Perl, 237 229 209 chars

Solution 10 - Language Agnostic

Windows PowerShell, 199 chars

Solution 11 - Language Agnostic

Ruby, 215, 216, 218, 221, 224, 236, 237 chars

Solution 12 - Language Agnostic

Python 2.x, latitudinarian approach = 227 183 chars

Rant

Python 2.x, punctilious approach = 277 243 chars

Solution 13 - Language Agnostic

Haskell - 366 351 344 337 333 characters

Solution 14 - Language Agnostic

JavaScript (Rhino) - 405 395 387 377 368 343 304 chars

Solution 15 - Language Agnostic

perl, 205 191 189 characters/ 205 characters (fully implemented)

Solution 16 - Language Agnostic

Python 3.1 - 245 229 charaters

Solution 17 - Language Agnostic

PHP CLI version (450 chars)

Solution 18 - Language Agnostic

Perl: 203 202 201 198 195 208 203 / 231 chars

Solution 19 - Language Agnostic

F#, 452 chars

Solution 20 - Language Agnostic

Python 2.6, 347 chars

Solution 21 - Language Agnostic

Gawk -- 336 (originally 507) characters

Solution 22 - Language Agnostic

*sh (+curl), partial solution

Solution 23 - Language Agnostic

Common LISP, 670 characters

Solution 24 - Language Agnostic

C (828)

Solution 25 - Language Agnostic

Perl, 185 char

Solution 26 - Language Agnostic

Java - 886 865 756 744 742 744 752 742 714 680 chars

Solution 27 - Language Agnostic

Scala, 368 chars

Solution 28 - Language Agnostic

Scala 2.8, 311 314 320 330 332 336 341 375 characters

Solution 29 - Language Agnostic

Clojure 282 strict

Solution 30 - Language Agnostic

Java - 896 chars

931 chars

1233 chars made unreadable

1977 chars "uncompressed"

Solution 31 - Language Agnostic

C++, 647 chars

Solution 32 - Language Agnostic

Yet another python 2.x - 206 chars (or 232 with 'width bar')

Python 3.x - 256 chars

Solution 33 - Language Agnostic

Java - 991 chars (incl newlines and indentations)

sh (+curl), partial* solution

Java - 991 chars _{^{(incl newlines and indentations)}}