Count specific values in multidimensional array - php

Question

I'm trying to count the number of times a certain value appears in my multidimensional array based on a condition. Here's an example array;
$fruit = array (
"oranges" => array(
"name" => "Orange",
"color" => "orange",
"taste" => "sweet",
"healthy" => "yes"
),
"apples" => array(
"name" => "Apple",
"color" => "green",
"taste" => "sweet",
"healthy" => "yes"
),
"bananas" => array(
"name" => "Banana",
"color" => "yellow",
"taste" => "sweet",
"healthy" => "yes"
),
"grapes" => array(
"name" => "Grape",
"color" => "green",
"taste" => "sweet",
"healthy" => "yes"
)
);
If I want to DISPLAY all green coloured fruit, I can do the following (let me know if this is the best way of doing it);
for ($row = 0; $row < 3; $row++) {
if($fruit[$row]["color"]=="green") {
echo $fruit[$row]["name"] . '<br />';
}
}
This will output;
Apple
Grape
That's great and I can see their are 2 values there, but how can I actually get PHP to count the number of fruit where the colour is green and put it in a variable for me to use further down the script to work stuff out? E.g. I want to do something like;
if($number_of_green_fruit > 1) { echo "You have more than 1 piece of green fruit"; }
I've taken a look at count(); but I don't see any way to add a 'WHERE/conditional' clause (a la SQL).
Any help would be really appreciated.

Answer 1

PHP has no support for a SQL where sort of thing, especially not with an array of arrays. But you can do the counting your own while you iterate over the data:
$count = array();
foreach($fruit as $one)
{
#$count[$one['color']]++;
}
printf("You have %d green fruit(s).\n", $count['green']);
The alternative is to write yourself some little helper function:
/**
* array_column
*
* #param array $array rows - multidimensional
* #param int|string $key column
* #return array;
*/
function array_column($array, $key) {
$column = array();
foreach($array as $origKey => $value) {
if (isset($value[$key])) {
$column[$origKey] = $value[$key];
}
}
return $column;
}
You then can get all colors:
$colors = array_column($fruit, 'color');
And then count values:
$count = array_count_values($colors);
printf("You have %d green fruit(s).\n", $count['green']);
That kind of helper function often is useful for multidimensional arrays. It is also suggested as a new PHP function for PHP 5.5.

Answer 2

$number_of_green_fruit = 0;
for ($row = 0; $row < 3; $row++) {
if($fruit[$row]["color"]=="green") {
$number_of_green_fruit++;
echo $fruit[$row]["name"] . '<br />';
}
}

Answer 3

All you need is an extra counter:
for ($row = $number_of_green_fruit = 0; $row < 3; $row++) {
if($fruit[$row]["color"]=="green") {
echo $fruit[$row]["name"] . '<br />';
$number_of_green_fruit++;
}
}
if($number_of_green_fruit > 1) {
echo "You have more than 1 piece of green fruit";
}

Answer 4

With PHP 5.4+ you can have this short snippet to count specific values (don't even need to declare the $count variable previously)
array_walk_recursive($fruit, function ($value) use (&$count) {
$count += (int) ($value === 'green');
});
var_dump($count); // Outputs: int(2)