Question

Is it possible without iterating the array?

$arr = array(
         'section1' => array(
                         5  => array(1, 2, 3),
                         25 => array(4, 5),
                         34 => array(10, 12),

                       ),

         'section2' => array(
                         45 => array(1, 42, 3),                             
                         64 => array(10, 2, 5, 95),
                       ),

         'section3' => array(
                         5 =>  array(1, 2, 3, 5, 2),
                         25 => array(4, 5, 14),
                         34 => array(17),
                       ),



       );

$count = 0;

foreach($arr as $section)
  foreach($section as $subsection)
    foreach($subsection as $entries)      
      $count++;

echo $count; // 23

It works but I dont want to iterate trough the entire array just to count some elements…

Answer 1

You can use count().

If you need a total of all elements from all levels:

count($arr, COUNT_RECURSIVE);

If you only need to count the ones on the third level:

foreach($arr as $section)
  foreach($section as $subsection)
    $count += count($subsection);