if string doesn't contain the space " ", the explode method doesn't do anything, so i've wrote this and it seems works better ... i don't know about time and resource
<?php
function str_incounter($match,$string) {
$count_match = 0;
for($i=0;$i<strlen($string);$i++) {
if(strtolower(substr($string,$i,strlen($match)))==strtolower($match)) {
$count_match++;
}
}
return $count_match;
}
?>
example
<?php
$string = "something:something!!something";
$count_some = str_incounter("something",$string);
// will return 3
?>