Remove duplicates from comma separated string and count total strings

Question

im trying to remove from my string the comma separeted and multiples strings and then to count strings as total, i have no luck so.. any help will be apreciated, thanks!

Example names [alex,daniel,obama,alex,alex,alex,diana] = 7 names and without duplicates = 4 as total. This i'm trying to achive.

Here's the Php code:

 $q = mysqli_query($db,"SELECT DISTINCT(names) FROM users WHERE uid = 1 ");
     while ($data = mysqli_fetch_array($q)) {
       $names = count($data['names']);
     echo implode(',', array_keys(array_flip(explode(',',$names))));
 }

DISTINCT is not a function, it's a keyword. In the SELECT list, it applies to *all* expressions in the SELECT list. That is, there's no need for the extraneous parens around `names`. Those parens have no meaning. And they make no difference (other than to make it look like the author of the SQL believes that DISTINCT is a function.) — spencer7593, Oct 04 '19 at 22:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 04 '19 at 21:44

If $data['names'] is a comma separated list of names, you can get only the unique values like this:

$names = array_unique(explode(',', $data['names']));
$count = count($names);
$names = implode(',', $names);
echo "$count names: $names\n";

For your sample data, this gives

4 names: alex,daniel,obama,diana

Demo on 3v4l.org

Remove duplicates from comma separated string and count total strings

1 Answers1