[RESOLVED] Counting serialized entries

[neljan]

Hello

I have something like this in a db field:

|1.jpg|2.jpg|3.jpg|4.jpg

Would someone mind telling me the PHP I should use in order to count the number of items and return that value? (in this case, 4)

Thanks very much 🙂

EDIT

I found this portion of code:

	$screenshots = '';
	if(!empty($ds['screens'])) $screens=explode("|", $ds['screens']);
	if(is_array($screens)) {
		$n=1;
		foreach($screens as $screen) {
			if(!empty($screen)) {
				$screenshots.='<a href="images/clanwar-screens/'.$screen.'" rel="lightbox"><img src="images/clanwar-screens/'.$screen.'" style="width: 265px; height: 190px; border: 0; padding: 5px;" alt="" /></a>';

				if($nbr==3) {$nbr=1; $screenshots.='<br />';}
				else {$nbr=2;}

			$n++;
		}
	}
}
if(!(mb_strlen(trim($screenshots)))) $screenshots= 'n/a';

Just in case it helps 😕

[NogDog]

One way:

$parts = preg_split('/|/', $string, 0, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
$count = count($parts);

Of course, the better way would be to better normalize the database so that you are not storing multiple values in one field -- or at least use a "set" type of column if you are -- allowing you to easily let the DB do the work for you. 🙂

[neljan]

Thanks very much NogDog, appreciate it 🙂