Get archives as array

Question

I'm looking for a way to get the values returned from wp_get_archives as an array, similar to get_categories. I need to do this to modify the post counters to use - [#] instead of (#). See my current code below:

My code for categories, which displays as desired:

$cats = get_categories();
if ($cats) {
    echo "<section class='widget'>";
    echo "<header><h4>Categories</h4></header>";
    echo "<ul>";
    foreach ($cats as $cat) {
        echo "<li><a href='" . get_category_link($cat->term_id) . "'>" . $cat->name . "</a> - [" . $cat->count . "]</li>";
    }
    echo "</ul>";
    echo "</section><!--/.widget-->";
}

My code for archvies, which does not display as desired:

$archives = wp_get_archives(array(
    "echo"            => 0,
    "show_post_count" => true,
));
if ($archives) {
    echo "<section class='widget'>";
    echo "<header><h4>Archives</h4></header>";
    echo "<ul class='cats'>" . $archives . "</ul>";
    echo "</section><!--/.widget-->";
}

Answer 1

If you look at wp_get_archives() you will notice that the link is generated by get_archives_link(). That function supplies a filter that will allow you to replace the parens.

This is fairly crude but does work.

function archive_link_wpse_183665($link) {
  $pat = '|\(([^)])\)</li>|';
  //   preg_match($pat,$link,$matches);
  //   var_dump($matches);

  $link = preg_replace($pat,'[$1]',$link);
  return $link;
}
add_filter( 'get_archives_link', 'archive_link_wpse_183665' );