Question

I am fetching some data from the db and then push them to an array. I need to find the count of some strings and print out the result (count) in an efficient way:

Array
(
    [0] => q1-1,q2-2,q3-2,q4-1,q5-2,q6-3,q7-1,q8-4,
    [1] => q1-1,q2-2,q3-1,q4-3,q5-3,q6-3,q7-2,q8-1,
    [2] => q1-1,q2-1,q3-1,q4-1,q5-1,q6-2,q7-2,q8-2,
    [3] => q1-3,q2-1,q3-1,q4-1,q5-2,q6-3,q7-1,q8-1,
    [4] => q1-2,q2-2,q3-3,q4-1,q5-3,q6-3,q7-1,q8-1,
    [5] => q1-1,q2-2,q3-3,q4-1,q5-2,q6-3,q7-1,q8-1,
    [6] => q1-3,q2-1,q3-1,q4-3,q5-2,q6-3,q7-2,q8-4,
    [7] => q1-2,q2-2,q3-3,q4-1,q5-2,q6-5,q7-1,q8-1,
    [8] => q1-1,q2-1,q3-2,q4-3,q5-3,q6-5,q7-1,q8-1,
    [9] => q1-2,q2-1,q3-1,q4-1,q5-3,q6-3,q7-1,q8-1,
    [10] => q1-3,q2-2,q3-3,q4-3,q5-4,q6-3,q7-1,q8-1,
    ...
)

Sample data is above.

I need to know how many occurences of q1-1, q1-2 … q8-4 is in the array and print out readable version. Ex. The are 23: q1-1, 412: q1-2 and so on.

I was going to create an array of each string that needs to be searched that iterate through the array. For every result increment the resultVariable for that string but I’m not sure if that’s the best way.

Suggestions?

Answer 1

Pretty simple, loop on your array, create sub arrays, and create a counter array:

$counts = array () ;
foreach ( $your_array as $row ) {
    $sub = explode(',', $row);
    foreach ( $sub as $subval ) {
        if ( array_key_exists ( $subval, $counts ) ) {
            $counts[$subval] ++ ;
        } else {
            $counts[$subval] = 1 ;
        }
    }
}

Here is $counts:

Array (
    'q1-1' => 23,
    'q1-2' => 9,
    // and so on....
);