Increment value in array php - php

Question

I am trying to make a function that grabs all the days that have events that are in a database for a certain user. For instance if there were two events on Jan 23, 2013 it would add Jan 23, 2013 to the array. I got it to work so it adds all the days (without adding the same day twice) but now I want to be able to say how many dates are on each day. So on Jan 23, 2013 it would say they have two events in that day.
I hope this makes sense... I have some code for further aid.
PHP Function (grabbing each day that has events)
//gets upcoming days that have events for a user
public function get_upcoming_days_with_events() {
$return_array = array();
$date_in=null;
$user_id = $this->session->userdata('id');
$query =$this->db->select()->from('events')->where('user_id', $user_id)->get();
foreach ($query->result_array() as $event => $row) {
$date = strtotime($row['date_due']);
if (sizeof($return_array) != 0) {
foreach ($return_array as $date_in_array => $row) {
$d = $row['full_date'];
if (date('Y-m-d', $date) == $d) {
//date is already in array
//increment the number of assignments on this day
$row['number_of_assignments'] += 1;
$date_in = true;
} else{
$date_in = false;
}
}
}
if ($date_in == false) {
$return_array[] = array(
'day' => date('d', $date),
'month' => date('m', $date),
'full_date' => date('Y-m-d', $date),
'number_of_assignments' => 1
);
}
}
return $return_array;
}
So with this I want to be able to increment $return_array['number_of_assignments'] if my function notices that a certain day has more than one event.
Let me know if you need any more info...
Thanks! :)

Answer 1

We can save the info in return_array by index of date, if the date info have not been set into return_array, we make an empty info. Each time, we simply increase number_of_assignments.
public function get_upcoming_days_with_events()
{
$return_array = array();
$user_id = $this->session->userdata('id');
$query =$this->db->select()->from('events')->where('user_id', $user_id)->get();
foreach ($query->result_array() as $event => $row)
{
$date = strtotime($row['date_due']);
$date_key = date('Y-m-d', $date);
if (!isset($return_array[$date_key]))
{
$new_item = array(
'day' => date('d', $date),
'month' => date('m', $date),
'full_date' => $date_key,
'number_of_assignments' => 0,
);
$return_array[$date_key] = $new_item;
}
$return_array[$date_key]['number_of_assignments']++;
}
$return_array = array_values($return_array);
return $return_array;
}

Answer 2

Function: array_count_values() can help you with this, it gives total number of occurance of a value in an array.
For example:
$a = array("apple", "banana", "apple");
var_dump(array_count_values($a));
Will output
array(
[apple] => 2,
[banana] => 1
);
So instead of trying to filter out duplicate events, add them all on the array and then use array_count_values() at last to know their occurenses.