Data & Arrays (should be simple)

[Anon]

Should be simple.. but it's confusing me.

I have a script where I use text files to store names and e-mail addresses, it shows them on the page no problem at all. Now I want to order the list by name, I have tried but had nothing but trouble with it. Can you guys help me?

[[deleted]]

have you tried the array sort functions?

[Anon]

Yes and I know that they would work but I have to sort an array that already exists and I'm struggling

[techek]

What you could do would be to store your data in array (which you already do) and then use sort on it, something like this :

<?php
$names = array(
"[e-mail]" => "A. Gajic",
"[e-mail]" => "S. Omegirl",
"[e-mail]" => "J. K. Hansen",
);

asort($names);

while(list($email, $name) = each($names)) {
echo "$name ($email)<br>\n";
}
?>

.. would give you something like (I guess!) :

A. Gajic ([e-mail])
J. K. Hansen ([e-mail])
S. Omegirl ([e-mail])

Well, that's the basic thing. Look at www.php.net/asort to get more info on that sorting-thing. If you need more help (eg. when sorting array-elements with much more data, write me and I'll whip up some code at my homepage. Happy coding!

[frigidman]

Techek's idea is a possibility, except if two emails are the same, then the last email/name value would overwrite the first one ... oops?

One way you can do it, is read in the file, and while building the array, bui9ld a second to use in a multisort.

Like this:

(this assumes the text file stores names/emails with tabs and newlines)
$thefile = @fopen($whichfile,"r");
$content = fread($thefile,10000000);
fclose($thefile);
$contentarray = explode("\n",$content);//newline delimited

foreach($contentarray as $num => $val){//$num is not used
$row = explode("\t",$val);//tab delimited: 0=name and 1=email
$mainarray[] = array($row[0],$row[1]);
$sorter[] = $row[0];
}
array_multisort($sorter,SORT_ASC,SORT_STRING,$mainarray);

Then loop through $mainarray and it should be in sorted order by name... change the contents of $sorter to use [1] and it would be sorted by email. Hope this works and helps!

[Anon]

Here is the bit of the script that I am working with:

---

$filename = "people.txt";
$handle = file($filename);
$count = count($handle);

echo " <table width=\"600\" align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"2\">\n";
echo "<tr>\n";
echo "<td align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#0D374F\" class=\"text\"><b>Name</b></td>\n";
echo "<td align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#0D374F\" class=\"text\"><b>MSN</b></td>\n";
echo "</tr>\n";

for($i = $view; $count > $i; $i++) {

$h = explode("|",$handle[$i]);
$name = stripslashes($h[0]); 
$msn = stripslashes($h[1]);

$show = "<tr>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\">$name</td>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\"><a href=\"mailto:$mail\">$mail</a></td>\n";
$show .= "</tr>\n";

echo $show;

}

---

$i = $view is for another part of the script - that is not a problem.

What i need to do is put the records that are retrieved from the text file and to place there names into an array and then to sort the array. I have tried to do this but I have had no success..

[frigidman]

If what you have there sucessfully displays the contents of the file, but NOT in order... then all you need to do is try this out for size:

[previous file stuff]

for($i = $view; $count > $i; $i++) {
$h = explode("|",$handle[$i]);
$name = stripslashes($h[0]);
$msn = stripslashes($h[1]);

$contentarray[] = array('name'=>$name,'mail'=>$msn);
$sorter[] = $name;
}

array_multisort($sorter,SORT_ASC,SORT_STRING,$contentarray);

for($n = 0; $row = $contentarray[$n]; $n++) {

$show = "<tr>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\">$row[name]</td>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\"><a href=\"mailto:$mail\">$row[mail]</a></td>\n";
$show .= "</tr>\n";

echo $show;
}

[frigidman]

sorry, that first $mail should also look like the one I had for the link name:

mailto:$mail

should be:

mailto:$row[mail]

[Anon]

That is great but I have another problem. I have it so that it shows 25 names and emails per page so there are next and previous links.

I need it so that they span over the two pages in order,

sorry about this guys but i really have no clue

Here is the code that I have.

---

if (!isset($view)) {

$view=0;

}

for($i = $view; $count > $i; $i++) {

$h = explode("|",$handle[$i]);
$name = stripslashes($h[0]);
$msn = stripslashes($h[1]);

$contentarray[] = array('name' => $name, 'mail' => $msn);
$sorter[] = $name;

}

array_multisort($sorter, SORT_ASC,SORT_STRING, $contentarray);

for($n = 0; $row = $contentarray[$n]; $n++) {

$show = "<tr>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\">$row[name]</td>\n";
$show .= "<td bgcolor=\"#104665\" class=\"text\"><a href=\"mailto:$row[mail]\">$row[mail]</a></td>\n";
$show .= "</tr>\n";

echo $show;

if($i == $view+25)  {

    break;

}

}

echo "</table>";

$prev = $view-25;
$next = $view+25;

Thanks guys, appreciated very much