[RESOLVED] Finding identical occurances of a string within an array

[Rulkster]

I have an array:

$myarray = "A1&1&^{B1&1&C1&1&D1&1&B1&1&"}

You can see that this is an array within an array, The first set of information is separated by the ampersand while the array itself is separated by a karat.

Doing a explode of ^ I would get:

$myarray[0] = A1&1
$myarray[1] = B1&1
etc...

Doing an explode of & I would get

$pieces[0] = A1
$pieces[1]=1

and so forth.

What I am trying to do is find if the occurance of $pieces[0] is found elsewhere in the array. I do not care about $pieces[1], this can be the same in the array.

So in my example you see that B1 repeats itself twice:

$myarray = "A1&1&^{B1&1&C1&1&D1&1&B1&1&"}

Is there a string function I can use or a way to right the code correctly to do this. I am pulling my hair out and it is probably a simple solution.

Thanks for any help!

[laserlight]

<?php
// The original string.
$myarray = "A1&1&^B1&1&^C1&1&^D1&1&^B1&1&^";

// The array representation of the original string.
$array = explode('^', $myarray);
// The pieces to search.
$pieces = array();
// Transform the string into the array.
foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
    $array[$key] = explode('&', $value);
    $pieces[$key] = $array[$key][0]; // Track the pieces to search.
}

// Search for the given piece.
$matches = array_keys($pieces, 'B1');

// Demonstration of what you can do with the matches.
foreach ($matches as $key) {
    echo $key . ': ' . $array[$key][0] . ' => ' . $array[$key][1] . '<br />';
}
?>

[Rulkster]

Thanks for the reply. However I will not know that I am looking for B1. I am just looking for a repeated value. In the example it is B1 but it could be whatever.

Also as far as what I want to do with it is just a simple conditional:

if match found {
$matchfound="yes";
} else {
$matchfound="no";
}

Thanks

[laserlight]

If all you want to know is which values have duplicates, then perhaps [man]array_count_values/man would be suitable, e.g.,

<?php
$myarray = "A1&1&^B1&1&^C1&1&^D1&1&^B1&1&^";

$array = explode('^', $myarray);
// The pieces to count.
$pieces = array();
// Transform the string into the array.
foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
    $pieces[$key] = array_shift(explode('&', $value));
}

// Enumerate the repeated values.
$count_values = array_count_values($pieces);
$repeated_values = array();
foreach ($count_values as $value => $count) {
    if ($count > 1) {
        $repeated_values[] = $value;
    }
}

print_r($repeated_values);
?>

[Rulkster]

Thanks for all your help, I got it working!