What are some common methods used in PHP to count specific characters, such as uppercase umlauts?

When counting specific characters, such as uppercase umlauts, in a string in PHP, one common method is to use the `mb_substr_count()` function along with the `mb_strtoupper()` function to ensure case-insensitive counting. Another approach is to loop through each character in the string and increment a counter variable when a match is found. Both methods provide a way to accurately count specific characters in a string.

// Using mb_substr_count() and mb_strtoupper() to count uppercase umlauts in a string
$string = "ÄÖÜÄÖÜ";
$character = "Ü";
$count = mb_substr_count(mb_strtoupper($string), mb_strtoupper($character));
echo $count;

// Looping through each character to count uppercase umlauts in a string
$string = "ÄÖÜÄÖÜ";
$character = "Ü";
$count = 0;
for ($i = 0; $i < mb_strlen($string); $i++) {
    if (mb_strtoupper(mb_substr($string, $i, 1)) == mb_strtoupper($character)) {
        $count++;
    }
}
echo $count;