Regular expressions - counting a pattern

[Anon]

Hi,

Is there a way to count how many X are in a pattern via eregi?

I can spot patterns and validate e-mail addresses fine, but how do I, say, count how many 6's are in the string 163462?

Cheers in advance guys.

[jc94062]

This may not be the best way, but its all I've got at 3am 😃

<?
//Question: count how many 6's are in the string 163462?

$string = '163462';
$wanted_num = 6;

for ($i=0;$i<strlen($string);$i++)
{
if ($string{$i} == $wanted_num)
{
$count_num++;
}
}

echo "Number of occurances of ".$wanted_num." in ".$string.": ".$count_num;

?>

Note that the $string value (ie 163462 in this case) MUST be surrounded by quotes, otherwise it doesn't work, kinda odd for a number but kept be guessing for a few minutes.

[Anon]

Cheers James, I forgot the good old 'for' loop could do it.

CHeers again.