Question

I have an array where I fill in the types as string of each element. For example:

Types array

type1 | type2 | type2 | type3 | type2 | type1 | type3

$types = array('type1', 'type2', 'type2', 'type3', 'type2', 'type1', 'type3')

Now I want to count the occurrence of each type as I iterate the array.

For example:

when I am at the first element of the array I want to return:

type1 : 1
type2 : 0
type3 : 0

When I am at the fourth element I want:

type1 : 1
type2 : 2
type3 : 1

Actually, I am only interested to find the occurrence of the type of the element which I am looking. For example: fourth element

type3: 1

Is there a php function to do that? Or I will have to iterate the whole array and count the occurrences of types ?

Thanks

Answer 1

There is not a native function to do this. But we can write a simple one:

$items = array(
        'type1',
        'type2',
        'type2',
        'type3',
        'type2',
        'type1',
        'type3'
    );

    foreach ($items as $order => $item) {
        $previous = array_slice($items, 0, $order + 1, true);
        $counts = array_count_values($previous);

        echo $item . ' - ' . $counts[$item] . '<br>';
    }

This code produces this:

type1 - 1
type2 - 1
type2 - 2
type3 - 1
type2 - 3
type1 - 2
type3 - 2