You don't have to convert that into an array()
you can use substr_count()
to achieve the same.
substr_count — Count the number of substring occurrences
<?php
$str = "cdcdcdcdeeeef";
echo substr_count($str, 'c');
?>
PHP Manual
substr_count()
returns the number of times the needle substring occurs in the haystack string. Please note that needle is case sensitive.
EDIT:
Sorry for the misconception, you can use count_chars
to have a counted value of each character in a string. An example:
<?php
$str = "cdcdcdcdeeeef";
foreach (count_chars($str, 1) as $strr => $value) {
echo chr($strr) . " occurred a number of $value times in the string." . "<br>";
}
?>
PHP Manual: count_chars
count_chars — Return information about characters used in a string