reading wordpress array and referencing DB

[acsonline]

Hey Guys,

 

I have a wordpress site, and there are custom fields in use. I can use

<?php get_post_meta($key); ?>

 

I need to count the output - for example on the page it may say FLO001,FLO001,FLO001,FLO004,FLO065

 

So I would need to know 3 x FLO001, 1 x FLO004, 1 x FLO065

 

Then check the database to find out the details for those codes.

 

I need to explode the array, then count then query - but how can I do this?