Count number of values in array with a given value

Question

Say I have an array like this:

$array = array('', '', 'other', '', 'other');

How can I count the number with a given value (in the example blank)?

And do it efficiently? (for about a dozen arrays with hundreds of elements each). This example times out (over 30 seconds):

function without($array) {
    $counter = 0;
    for($i = 0, $e = count($array); $i < $e; $i++) {
        if(empty($array[$i])) {
            $counter += 1;
        }
    }
    return $counter;
}

In this case, the number of blank elements is 3.

Cellfish: array_count_values works, but the script which normally takes 1 - 2sec to execute took nearly 20sec! Johnathan: array_keys did not work for this particular function. Steve: array_reduce also works but not as fast as I would like. Camomile: Simply by changing $value === '' to empty($value) that turned out to be the fastest way to do this. function without($array) { $count = 0; foreach($array as $value) { if(empty($value)) { $count++; } } return $count; } — Tom
– Tom, Commented Aug 23, 2009 at 20:19

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:32:14Z

37

Use array_count _values to get an array with everything counted for you.

edited May 31 at 9:32

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 23, 2009 at 2:45

Cellfish

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1 Comment

mickmackusa Over a year ago

array_count_values() is not reliable if the count is zero because only found values become keys

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:30:42Z

32

Here is just an idea. You could use array_keys($myArray, "") using the optional second parameter which specifies a search-value. Then count the result.

$myArray = array("", "", "other", "", "other");
$length  = count(array_keys($myArray, ""));

edited May 31 at 9:30

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 23, 2009 at 2:41

Sampson

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2 Comments

Steve Tauber Over a year ago

This is a great alternative, especially if dealing with boolean values.

Roberto Sepúlveda Bravo Over a year ago

@SteveTauber or arrays as the search value :)

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:31:51Z

6

I don’t know if this would be faster, but it's something to try:

$counter = 0;
foreach($array as $value)
{
  if($value === '')
    $counter++;
}
echo $counter;

edited May 31 at 9:31

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 23, 2009 at 2:43

camomileCase

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:46:16Z

3

You could also try array_reduce, with a function which would just count the value you are interested in. For example,

function is_empty( $v, $w )
{ return empty( $w ) ? ($v + 1) : $v; }

array_reduce( $array, 'is_empty', 0 );

Some benchmarking might tell you if this is faster than array_count_values().

edited May 31 at 9:46

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 23, 2009 at 7:18

Steve

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:37:16Z

2

We use the array_filter function to find out the number of values in an array:

$array = array('', '', 'other', '', 'other');
$filled_array = array_filter($array); // Will return only the filled values
$count = count($filled_array);
echo $count; // Returns array count

edited May 31 at 9:37

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 18, 2016 at 8:56

Bhushan Rana

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:40:27Z

1

The following is generally for counting blanks only. It really depends on the use case and speed needed. Personally, I like doing things on one line.

It is like Cellfish's answer, though. But you still need a line to extract the data needed though to another variable.

$r = count($x) - count(array_filter($x));

edited May 31 at 9:40

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 31, 2017 at 8:12

Darren

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1 Comment

user1836049 Over a year ago

Or use callback: count(array_filter($x, function ($v) {return '' === $v;}))

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:34:52Z

-4

function arrayvaluecount($array) {

    $counter = 0;
    foreach($array as $val) {

        list($v) = $val;
        if($v) {
            $counter = $counter + 1;
        }
    }
    return $counter;
}

edited May 31 at 9:34

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 13, 2015 at 7:55

user2964153

1

Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-31 09:38:31Z

-4

function countarray($array)
{
    $count = count($array);
    return $count;
}

$test = $array = array('', '', 'other', '', 'other');
echo countarray($test);

edited May 31 at 9:38

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 18, 2016 at 9:08

Swaran

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1 Comment

Bhushan Rana Over a year ago

$array=array('','','other','','other'); $filled_array=array_filter($array);// will return only filled values $count=count($filled_array); echo $count;// returns array count

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