thanks - sent me in the right direction and now sorted
After a bit of minor tweaking it worked. This was the final working code:
$uniqueriders = array();
for($e = 0; $e < sizeof($this->Items); $e++){
if(!(in_array($this->Items[$e]->rider, $uniqueriders))){
$uniqueriders[$e] = $this->Items[$e]->rider;
}
}
$riders = count($uniqueriders);
I noticed if I run the ecart interface it dissapears, but that is no hardship. Many thanks for your assistance on this custom code.