Using array_count_values and getting "Can only count STRING and INTEGER values!" error

Question

I'm trying to add 4 arrays into one array ($all_prices) and then check the values of each key in each individual array against $all_prices to make sure that they are unique. If they are not I want to add a 0 to the end of if to make it unique (so 0.50 becomes 0.500).

For some reason I'm getting the following error, despite the fact that I already changed the data type from decimal to varchar:

array_count_values(): Can only count STRING and INTEGER values!

Edit Here is a snippet from dd($all_prices)

array(4) { [0]=> array(9) { ["14.45"]=> string(8) "sample 1" ["12.40"]=> 
string(8) "sample 2" ["14.13"]=> string(8) "sample 3" ["15.11"]=> 
string(8) "sample 4"

Code:

$all_prices   = [$list_a_prices, $list_b_prices, $list_c_prices, $list_d_prices];
$price_count  = array_count_values($all_prices);

foreach($list_b_prices as $key => $value){
    if($price_count[$key] >= 2){
        $key . "0";
    }
}

Where am I going wrong? Is there is a way to leave the data type as Decimal?

Answer 1

I think you should not index by the prices, after all from a math point of view 5.0 and 5.00 does not make difference at all.

If you are obtaining values from a database you will get strigs everywhere. So you will have to cast (int)$key for the keys.

And in your foreach you are changing a temporary variable. $key exists only for the current iteration of the loop you will want to declare it as:

foreach($list_b_prices as &(int)$key => $value){
    if($price_count[$key] >= 2){
        $key . "0";
    }
}

Note the ampersand and the casting to integer. Although i'm not sure which will come first. But again: I think indexing by some different value shall give you a better result.

Answer 2

What about a nested loop ?

$all_prices   = [$list_a_prices, $list_c_prices, $list_d_prices];

foreach($list_b_prices as $key => $value){
    foreach($all_prices as $array){
        if(isset($array[$key])){
            $list_b_prices[$key] .= '0';
        }
    }
}

Not elegant but it does the trick.