Here's a mappish WTDI:

@array = qw/a b a c b d e c a/;
%hash = map { $_ => ++$hash{$_} } @array;                             
+  
printf "%s => %s\n", $_, $hash{$_} foreach sort keys %hash;  
---------
a => 3
b => 2
c => 2
d => 1
e => 1
[download]

I had a hell of a time trying to figure this out, getting each total one less than it should have been, until I thought to use a prefix ++ instead of postfix. Code and learn, I guess. HTH.

--

Mephit (See my home node for my rant about Opera and PerlMonks, and my earliest nodes.)