Getting the number of occurrences of a string in a table?

One way of doing this would be the __newindex metamethod

__NewIndex

the new index metamethod fires when a script attempts to assign a new index of the table to a value. An example of something that would fire the metamethod would be:

local meta = {
    __newindex = function(self,key,value)
        print("attempted to index: "..key.." as value: "..value)
    end
}
local tbl = {}

setmetatable(tbl,meta)
tbl[3] = "hi" -- "attempted to index: 3 as value: hi"

we can particularly use the value portion of the function to see if it is the particular string you wanted, if so, add one to a counter variable.

For example:

local counter = 0
local Target = --target string here
local meta = {
    __newindex = function(self,key,value)
        if value == Target then
            counter = counter + 1
        end
    end
}
local tbl = {}
setmetatable(tbl,meta)

Iterating

An alternative to doing that would be to iterate through the table when the button in question is clicked.

An example of that would be:

local counter = 0
local target = --target String 
local button = --textbutton hierarchical position here

button.Activated:Connect(function()
    for k,v in pairs(strings) do
        if v == target then
            counter = counter + 1
        end
    end
end)

Hopefully this helped, be sure to accept if it did!

Writing this in scriptinghelpers website, so don't be suprised if it doesn't work.

function getStringAppearances(table, string)
local appearances = 0
    if type(string) == "string" then
        for _, strings in pairs(table) do
            if strings == string then
            appearances = appearances + 1
            end
        end
    end
    return appearances
end

local myTable = {"cat", "cat", "dog"}

print(getStringAppearances(myTable, "cat")) -- should be 2? Tell me if not and i'll debug it for you