Today I was just thinking what are the possible ways to count the occurrence of a specific word inside a string. I found some possible ways finally and I just benchmarked them. Wanna see the result?? – for sure you will find it interesting too.

<?
function microtime_float()
{
   list($usec, $sec) = explode(” “, microtime());

   return ((float)$usec + (float)$sec);
}

$str = “I have three PHP books, first one is ‘PHP Tastes Good’,
 next is ‘PHP in your breakfast’ and the last one is ‘PHP Nightmare'”;

$start = microtime_float();
for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{

    $cnt = count(split(“PHP”,$str))-1;
}
$end = microtime_float();

echo “Count by Split+Count took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();

for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{
    preg_match_all(“/php/i”,$str,$matches);

    $cnt = count($matches[0]);

}
$end = microtime_float();
echo “Count by Preg_Match+Count took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();

for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{

    str_replace(“PHP”,“PP”,$str,$cnt);
    //echo $cnt;
}
$end = microtime_float();

echo “Count by str_replace took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();

for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{
    str_ireplace(“PHP”,“PP”,$str,$cnt);

    //echo $cnt;
}
$end = microtime_float();
echo “Count By str_ireplace took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();

for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{

    $cnt = count(explode(“PHP”,$str))-1;
    //echo $cnt;
}
$end = microtime_float();

echo “Count By Explode+Count took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();

for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{
    $word_count = (array_count_values(str_word_count(strtolower($str),1)));

    ksort($word_count);

    $cnt = $word_count[‘php’];
}
$end = microtime_float();
echo “Count By Array Functions took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();
for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)

{
    $cnt = count(preg_split(“/PHP/i”,$str))-1;
}
$end = microtime_float();

echo “Count By preg_split+Count took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

$start = microtime_float();
for ($i=0; $i<10000; $i++)
{

    $cnt = substr_count($str, “PHP”);
}
$end = microtime_float();
echo “Count By substr_count took : “.($end–$start).” Seconds\n”;

?>

And the result is

First Run
Count by Split+Count took : 0.44112181663513 Seconds
Count by Preg_Match+Count took : 0.46423101425171 Seconds
Count by str_replace took : 0.23512482643127 Seconds
Count By str_ireplace took : 0.39766597747803 Seconds
Count By Explode+Count took : 0.25045800209045 Seconds
Count By Array Functions took : 1.1077101230621 Seconds
Count By preg_split+Count took : 0.30741000175476 Seconds
Count By substr_count took : 0.21060705184937 Seconds

Second Run

Count by Split+Count took : 0.68125295639038 Seconds
Count by Preg_Match+Count took : 0.60020899772644 Seconds
Count by str_replace took : 0.2877471446991 Seconds
Count By str_ireplace took : 0.47500586509705 Seconds
Count By Explode+Count took : 0.31055402755737 Seconds
Count By Array Functions took : 1.3551599979401 Seconds
Count By preg_split+Count took : 0.40205383300781 Seconds
Count By substr_count took : 0.24432802200317 Seconds

Third Run
Count by Split+Count took : 0.50134515762329 Seconds
Count by Preg_Match+Count took : 0.53588891029358 Seconds
Count by str_replace took : 0.25469994544983 Seconds
Count By str_ireplace took : 0.34696006774902 Seconds
Count By Explode+Count took : 0.23176002502441 Seconds
Count By Array Functions took : 1.0504789352417 Seconds
Count By preg_split+Count took : 0.28686618804932 Seconds
Count By substr_count took : 0.20796585083008 Seconds

Fourth Run
Count by Split+Count took : 0.4736020565033 Seconds
Count by Preg_Match+Count took : 0.48813104629517 Seconds
Count by str_replace took : 0.29280996322632 Seconds
Count By str_ireplace took : 0.51396799087524 Seconds
Count By Explode+Count took : 0.34470105171204 Seconds
Count By Array Functions took : 1.4177949428558 Seconds
Count By preg_split+Count took : 0.36489319801331 Seconds
Count By substr_count took : 0.27841401100159 Seconds

If you are interested to know the machine configuration, these tests ran on a Celeron 1.6GHz processor based laptop with 768 MB of RAM. And I am using PHP 5.1.1

You know that in ruby/prototype you can traverse thru each element of array like this Array.each(function(){/*function body*/}). It has also some methods like without(), inspect(), indexOf();last(),  first() and others…. so how about implementing these cool methods in your regular PHP array?? No problem, lets extend the ArrayObject and have some fun. Here is the class.

class ExtendedArrayObject extends ArrayObject {

        private $_array;
        public function __construct()
        {
                if (is_array(func_get_arg(0)))
                $this->_array = func_get_arg(0);
                else
                $this->_array = func_get_args();
                parent::__construct($this->_array);
        }

        public function each($callback)
        {
                $iterator = $this->getIterator();

                while($iterator->valid()) {
                        $callback($iterator->current());
                        $iterator->next();
                }

        }

        public function without()
        {
                $args = func_get_args();
                return array_values(array_diff($this->_array,$args));
        }

        public function first()
        {
                return $this->_array[0];
        }

        public function indexOf($value)
        {
                return array_search($value,$this->_array);
        }

        public function inspect()
        {
                echo “<pre>”.print_r($this->_array, true).”</pre>”;
        }

        public function last()
        {
                return $this->_array[count($this->_array)-1];
        }

        public function reverse($applyToSelf=false)
        {
                if (!$applyToSelf)
                return array_reverse($this->_array);
                else
                {
                        $_array = array_reverse($this->_array);
                        $this->_array = $_array;
                        parent::__construct($this->_array);
                        return $this->_array;
                }
        }

        public function shift()
        {
                $_element = array_shift($this->_array);
                parent::__construct($this->_array);
                return $_element;
        }

        public function pop()
        {
                $_element = array_pop($this->_array);
                parent::__construct($this->_array);
                return $_element;
        }

######################################

Now you can use it like this

$newArray = new ExtendedArrayObject(array(1,2,3,4,5,6));

or you can even construct it like this

$newArray = new ExtendedArrayObject(1,2,3,4,5,6);

then you can use these methods

function speak($value)
{
  echo $value;

$newArray->each(speak)
$newArray->without(2,3,4);
$newArray->inspect();
$newArray->indexOf(5);
$newArray->reverse();
$newArray->reverse(true); /*for changing array itself*/
$newArray->shift();
$newArray->pop();
$newArray->last();
$newArray->first();

So how is this ExtendedArrayObject, like it?

Regards
Hasin Hayder
http://hasin.wordpress.com