Inner string counting

[Anon]

How can you count the elements in a string?

I mean if I wanna count how many a letters are in that variable:

$_my_string = 'astalavista';

I know that that could be done with explode & than count,... but Is there a more direct & immediate way to do it automaticly?

[van__]

echo strlen($_my_string);

all this and more can be found here:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php

read up.

[Anon]

I know that. ;-) It count's the whole string. I need to know how many """a""" letters are in the my_string.

If somebody needs it here it is:

Hacked by Public Domain Community

$my_string = 'astalavista';
$a = 'a';
$tellme = substr_count($my_string , $a);
echo ("$tellme");

Van, thank you.