Quick Question About Array

[johnsmith153]

I have the following info in an array:

 

Jim, Bob, Dave, Jim, Jim, Jim, Paul, Jim

 

As you can see above - Jim has 5 entries

 

I need to sort it so I can check for the name and number of occurences of the 1st, 2nd,3rd most popular.

 

I know array_count_values can do sort of this - but as far as I am aware you need to know the value you are searching (i.e Jim)  Assume I dont know the expected value - all I know is that I want to return the one with the most occurences.

[DarkWater]

<?php
$array = array('jim', 'bob', 'dave', 'jim', 'jim', 'jim', 'paul', 'jim');
$nums = array_count_values($array);
sort($nums, SORT_NUMERIC);
$sorted = array_slice($nums, 0, 3);
foreach ($sorted as $name=>$count) {
  echo "$name appeared $count times";
}

[johnsmith153]

OUTSTANDING - quick response.

 

however, it doesn't work.

 

I can see it can work, must be something slightly out:

 

I get this returned:

0 appeared 1 times1 appeared 1 times2 appeared 1 times

 

I will try to modify, see if I can beat DarkWater to the solution!

[DarkWater]

Duh, forgot about keys being reset by sort() and the way it sorts.  Use arsort() instead, with the same flags.

 

<?php
$array = array('jim', 'bob', 'dave', 'jim', 'jim', 'jim', 'paul', 'jim');
$nums = array_count_values($array);
arsort($nums, SORT_NUMERIC);
$sorted = array_slice($nums, 0, 3);
foreach ($sorted as $name=>$count) {
  echo "$name appeared $count times<br />\n";
}

[johnsmith153]

I actually gave up and kept pressing my refresh button. Quicker that way.

[DarkWater]

LOL

[DarkWater]

Well, I tested the code and it worked, so there you go. But that's still kinda funny.