Count number of elements in array

Question

I have this in my DB: 3,14,12,13

Called $user['buddylist']

And this is my code, but the output is 1 instead of 4, What's wrong?

$prefix = '"';
$tag = explode( ',', $user['buddylist'] );
$foll = $prefix . implode( '",' . $prefix, $tag ) . '",';
$following = array($foll );
$nr = count($following);

The output of $foll is "3","14","12","13", :/

Answer 1

Because foll is a string when you do this:

$foll = $prefix . implode( '",' . $prefix, $tag ) . '",';

You are creating an array with one element when you do this:

$following = array($foll );

If you want to count, you need to count the array before you turn it into a string:

$prefix = '"';
$tag = explode( ',', $user['buddylist'] );
$nr = count($tag);
$foll = $prefix . implode( '",' . $prefix, $tag ) . '",';
$following = array($foll );

I would probably code it like this:

class Buddies {
 private $buddies;
 public function __construct($buddy_list_string) {
 $this->buddies = explode( ',', $buddy_list_string);
 }
 public function count() {
 return count($this->buddies);
 }
 public function __toString() {
 return '"' . implode('","', $this->buddies) . '"';
 }
 public function toArray() {
 return $this->buddies;
 }
}
$buddies = new Buddies($user['buddylist']);
echo $buddies->count(); //4
echo $buddies; //"3","14","12","13"
foreach($buddies->toArray() as $buddy) {
 //do stuff
}

• Jonathan Nungaray: so just I need this: $tag = explode( ',', $user['buddylist'] ); $nr = count($tag); ? :S