php count multi-dimensional array based on 2nd level value

Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:03 pm

Curious if someone would know offhand how to count a multi-dimensional array based on 2nd level value. For example, this array below:

$samplearray = array();
$samplearray["number1"] = array (
"value" => "some value",
"type" => "monkey"
);
$samplearray["number2"] = array (
"value" => "some value",
"type" => "monkey"
);
$samplearray["number3"] = array (
"value" => "some value",
"type" => "gorilla"
);
$samplearray["number4"] = array (
"value" => "some value",
"type" => "gorilla"
);

I can do:
$numMonkeys = count($samplearray);
(which equals 4)

But what I really want to know is the count that are of the "type" => "monkey" on the second level (2)

Site Admin Joined: Aug 22, 2007 Posts: 1774

I have found here some examples:
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maybe:

Code:

$totalcount = 0;


foreach ($samplearray as $key=>$value) {


   if ($samplearray[$key]['type'] == 'monkey') {


      $totalcount++;


   }


}


echo $totalcount;

Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 8:25 am

As neralex has pointed out you have to iterate through the array. There are no base PHP functions that will help when dealing with multi-dimensional arrays.

Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 11:22 am

thanks guys. was hoping there was something easy in all those array functions Rolling Eyes

I wanted the data just prior to iterating thru the array, so I might look for other options....

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 12:29 pm

What exactly you try to achieve?

Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 9:35 pm

wHiTeHaT, please see his original post... at the bottom... Wink

Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 10:03 pm

spasticdonkey, I haven't really thought this through all the way, but you may be able to strip out the second column into its own array and then do a count() on it...
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Like I said... haven't really though it through, but was looking for a way to utilize some additional array functions, strung together, to get what you want. These may be faster than brute force, but that might not be a need or even true...

Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 4:24 am

Thanks for the input Montego and good idea. At this point I'm just iterating the entire array and skipping the values that are not of a certain type.

foreach ($myarray as $myname => $details) {
$mytype = $details['type'];
if ($mytype === $type) {
// do stuff
}
}

The array isn't particularly large (about 100 keys), so not sure if it's worth the extra code or not, as I was just looking for a count to exit the loop when the relevant data had all been retrieved. Although in normal use only a small portion of the array is needed.