I've learnt a lot reading this post. What struck me was how you used split("",$i x $count[$i]) inside the loop. Here what you're pushing to the array as an element is the outcome of the split operation, in the split you used here, the "" gives unexpected or unwanted results if it is not precise to you what you are intending to do so. At some times it could become better that you assign the outcome to a variable first before pushing it to an array or manipulating it other ways.

have a happy programming and best of luck.