Sorting Trouble

[Anon]

Hello,

I am working on a project of my own, putting all my DVDs into a flat text file, and pulling everything out from with a PHP script. Everything is working well, except for the sorting.

I managed to take the 'the's and the 'a's off for sorting purposes, and then put them back on when displayed, but I want to go a little further. I have a number of series in my collection, and I want to do a sort by the first five letters of the title, then by the release date. I've tried a few different things, but no luck. Here's what I have:

$dvd_count = count($dvds);
$total_array = "";
for ($i=0; $i < $dvd_count; $i++) {
list($title, $release, $genre, $acquired, $image ) = explode("|", $dvds[$i]);
$image = ereg_replace("\n", "", $image);
$image = ereg_replace("\r", "", $image);
$total_array[] .= "".$title."|".$release."";
asort($total_array);

If anyone has a moment to help out a struggling media junkie, I'd me most appreciative.

Thanks,

Shaun

[gernot]

$dvd_count = count($dvds);
$total_array = array();
for ($i=0; $i < $dvd_count; $i++) {
list($title, $release, $genre, $acquired, $image ) = explode("|", $dvds[$i]);
$image = ereg_replace("\n", "", $image);
$image = ereg_replace("\r", "", $image);
$total_array[] = array("title"=>$title,"release"=>$release,"genre"=>$genre,"acquired"=>$acquired,"image"=>$image);

then you have all your necessary information in the $total_array;

for example you can use the following function to sort your array:

function array_quicksort(&$array, $column=0, $order=SORT_ASC, $first=0, $last= -2)
{
// $array - the array to be sorted
// $column - index (column) on which to sort
// can be a string if using an associative array
// $order - SORT_ASC (default) for ascending or SORT_DESC for descending
// $first - start index (row) for partial array sort
// $last - stop index (row) for partial array sort

if($last == -2) $last = count($array) - 1;
if($last > $first) {
$alpha = $first;
$omega = $last;
$guess = $array[$alpha][$column];
while($omega >= $alpha) {
if($order == SORT_ASC) {
while($array[$alpha][$column] < $guess) $alpha++;
while($array[$omega][$column] > $guess) $omega--;
}
else {
while($array[$alpha][$column] > $guess) $alpha++;
while($array[$omega][$column] < $guess) $omega--;
}
if($alpha > $omega) break;
$temporary = $array[$alpha];
$array[$alpha++] = $array[$omega];
$array[$omega--] = $temporary;
}
array_quicksort($array, $column, $order, $first, $omega);
array_quicksort($array, $column, $order, $alpha, $last);
}
return $array;
}

the function call could be

$total_array = array_quicksort($total_array,'title');

$total_array = array_quicksort($total_array,'release');

$total_array = array_quicksort($total_array,'genre');

and so on