sorting an array with unicode values

white99

Is there anyway that I can sort an array that have unicode values, of course it isn't possible with php function sort()
so what do you do if you wanted to sort this array?
any idea?
I heard that mysql 5 will support unicode, can I hope that one day sorting unicode will be possible in mysql?

tahnks.

swr

In theory you could do it using usort, which accepts a user-defined comparison function. Your comparison function would have to parse unicode strings in order to compare them, though.

There is also this:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.mbstring.php
but odds are it's not currently enabled on your PHP install, and I don't see any string comparison function in there.

white99

Thank you man.
But my problem is that the respect of alphabetic words in my language is like this:

       

                              "\xD8\xA7",     

      "\xD8\xA8",     

      "\xD9\xBE",
      "\xD8\xAA", 
      "\xD8\xAB",     

      "\xD8\xAC",     

      "\xDA\x86",     

      "\xD8\xAD",     

      "\xD8\xAE",     

      "\xD8\xAF",     

      "\xD8\xB0",     

      "\xD8\xB1",     

      "\xD8\xB2",     

      "\xDA\x98",     

      "\xD8\xB3",     

      "\xD8\xB4",     

      "\xD8\xB5",     

      "\xD8\xB6",     

      "\xD8\xB7",     

      "\xD8\xB8",     

      "\xD8\xB9",     

      "\xD8\xBA",     

      "\xD9\x81",     

      "\xD9\x82",     

      "\xDA\xA9",     

      "\xDA\xAF",     

      "\xD9\x84",     

      "\xD9\x85",     

      "\xD9\x86",     

      "\xD9\x88",     

      "\xD9\x87",     

      "\xD9\x8A",

so, as you see I can't compare them with bigger or smaller operators, I mean '<' or '>', cause they aren't respectively.
any other suggestions?

Weedpacket

Originally posted by white99
Thank you man.
But my problem is that the respect of alphabetic words in my language is like this:

But that's the whole point of usort: specify the comparison function you do want.

jayant

with usort you specify your own function.
your func will recieve 2 values as parameters.
lets call them str1 and str2.
now you need to return a value < 0 if str1 is less than str2; > 0 if str1 is greater than str2, and 0 if they are equal.

for
str1 = "xD8xAC"
str2 = "xDAx86"

return -1

like normal but:-

str1 = "xD8xAD"
str2 = "xDAx86"

return 1

(even though numerically str1 is less than str2, but using custom function allows me to force it to be greater than str2)

white99

Thanks;

I'm completely confused with specifing comparison function,how can I do that? do I have to write an if statment for each character? If yes I have to write '2^32' ifs for 32 characters!!! am I right!?

plus my language is inverse of english,I mean we write from right to left.
what can I do?

Weedpacket

Nah, you'd just put your alphabet in its usual order in an array. Then one character is less than another if it's earlier in the array than the other.

In fact, it can be easier than that.

$alphabet = array("\\xD8\\xA7", "\\xD8\\xA8", "\\xD9\\xBE", "\\xD8\\xAA",  etc.);
$alphabet = array_flip($alphabet);

With that flip, you can tell that \xD8\xBE < \xD8\xAA because

$alphabet["\\xD8\\xBE"]<$alphabet["\\xD8\\xAA"]

Now to extend that to strings.

Reverse the two strings and compare the first two characters.

If they're different then one is earlier than the other, and you have your answer.

If they're the same then go on to the next pair of characters.

Keep doing that until you either have an answer (in which case you can return that answer),

or one string turns out to be the shorter (in which case that one is less than the other),

or you get to the end of both strings (in which case they're equal).

As far as "sorting Unicode", the only sorting that makes sense would be in Unicode coding order - Does Thai become before or after Georgian?

jayant

make an array with all the 32 values, assign each character a number (in creasing order according to your charset).

like
myarr['charcode1'] = 1;
myarr['charcode2'] = 2;
myarr['charcode3'] = 3;

return the difference

return myarr[$str1]-myarr[$str2];

happy ?