How to limit duplicate values in an array - php

Question

First of all, I apologize for my lack of English. I hope you do understand what I'm trying to explain here.
So basically I need to build a function that would limit the number of duplicate values inside an array.
The reason I need to do this is that I'm building a system that would divide numbers into groups and every group has to have the same amount of numbers.
EDIT: Random number represents the group number.
I've written a function do this but for some reason, it is not working properly.
function jagaTiimid($max, $liiget, $tArvLength, $tArv){
$tiimid = []; //Starting array
for($z=0;$z<$liiget;$z++){
$numbers = [];
$rn = randomNumber($tArvLength, $tArv, $numbers); //Generate a random number for a group, etc group 1, group 2, group 3
$mitu = countInArray($tiimid, $rn); //Check how many times that number has occured in array
if($mitu == $max){ //If it equals to maximum number of times then...
$rnUus = randomNumber($tArvLength, $tArv, $numbers); //generate a new random number
while($rnUus == $rn){
$numbers = [];
$rnUus = randomNumber($tArvLength, $tArv, $numbers);
} //loop until the new generated number doesn't equal to old rn.
$tiimid[] = $rnUus; //if it doesn't equal to $rn then push into array
}else{
$tiimid[] = $rn;
}
}
return $tiimid;
}
For some reason the number still occures more than it is suppose to.
Basically how it shouldn't end up is.
As you can see, one group(group 2) occurs more times than other group but it should be equal for both groups.
EDIT: CountInArray();
function countInArray($array, $what) {
$count = 0;
for ($i = 0; $i < count($array); $i++) {
if ($array[$i] === $what) {
$count++;
}
}
return $count;
}

Answer 1

When the first random pick hits a number that is already used $liiget times, the inner loop kicks in, but it does not check whether the newly generated random number already occurs $liiget times.
For efficiency I would keep track of the number of times a number has been used. Also, you could benefit from a safety net, in case there really is no number any more that would not exceed the maximum recurrence.
It is not necessary to have a nested loop. The code would look like this:
function jagaTiimid($max, $liiget, $tArvLength, $tArv){
$tiimid = []; //Starting array
$counts = []; // Helper for quick count
$tries = 0; // Counter to avoid infinite looping
while (count($tiimid) < $liiget && $tries++ < 100) {
$numbers = [];
$rn = randomNumber($tArvLength, $tArv, $numbers); //Generate a random number for a group, etc group 1, group 2, group 3
if (!isset($counts[$rn])) $counts[$rn] = 0; // initialise on first occurence
if ($counts[$rn] < $max) {
$tiimid[] = $rn; // add it to the result
$counts[$rn]++; // ... and adjust the count
$tries = 0; // reset the safety
}
}
return $tiimid;
}

Answer 2

replace while($rnUus == $rn) with while(countInArray($tiimid, $rnUus) >= $max)
– Ilya Bursov