Sorting an Array

[generic]

Hey all...

I have to check the second column - as in $column[1] - of a text db and return the results through a loop alphabetically.

1|Rob|Jones|Seattle
2|Sue|Miller|San Diego
3|Joel|Smith|Orlando

(etc.., sorted alphabetically by name in the loop)

I checked the php manual and ripped this app apart but nothing seems to be working. Can someone give me an example of how to do this?

Thanks. 🙂

[bastien]

do you need the key (the 1,2,3) from your array?

[hyp0r]

You can use [man]array_multisort/man to handle this. Check out the below code, maybe it's not the best way, but it works!

<?php
$datafile = "data.txt";
$data = file($datafile);
for ($i=0;$i<sizeof($data);$i++) {
	$rowdata = split("\|",trim($data[$i]));
	$newdata[$i] = $rowdata;
	$firstname[$i] = $rowdata[1];
}
array_multisort($firstname, $newdata);
var_dump($newdata);
?>

That code returns:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  array(4) {
    [0]=>
    string(1) "3"
    [1]=>
    string(4) "Joel"
    [2]=>
    string(5) "Smith"
    [3]=>
    string(7) "Orlando"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(4) {
    [0]=>
    string(1) "1"
    [1]=>
    string(3) "Rob"
    [2]=>
    string(5) "Jones"
    [3]=>
    string(7) "Seattle"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(4) {
    [0]=>
    string(1) "2"
    [1]=>
    string(3) "Sue"
    [2]=>
    string(6) "Miller"
    [3]=>
    string(9) "San Diego"
  }
}

Which I belive is what you are looking for. You can then display that data with something like:

foreach ( $newdata as $values ) {
	echo "first name: $values[1]<br />";
	echo "last name: $values[2]<br />";
	echo "city: $values[3]<br />";
	echo "------------------------------<br />";
}

[generic]

Hi,

That's pretty much what I was looking for yea, but I can't get it integrated 🙁

My code looks like this for this particular function:

for ($i=0; $i<$counter; $i++) {
   $line = explode("|", $output[$i]);

   if($i % 2 ==0)
      $bgcolor='#efefef';
   else
      $bgcolor='#ffffff';

   echo "<a style=\"letter-spacing: 0 auto;\" href=\"loader.php?cid=" . $line[0] . "\">$line[1]</a><br>";
          }
     } else {
          echo 'Sorry. There are currently no people in this category.<br>';

It's basically just dumping out the file, but formatted. It just makes sense to me to alphabetically sort the file by name so I can maintain continuity on the site.

I'm slowly learning all this. Any help?

[hyp0r]

Try this:

for ($i=0; $i<sizeof($newdata); $i++) { 
	if($i % 2 ==0) 
		$bgcolor='#efefef'; 
	else 
		$bgcolor='#ffffff'; 
	echo "<a style=\"letter-spacing: 0 auto;\" href=\"loader.php?cid=" . $newdata[$i][0] . "\">".$newdata[$i][1]."</a><br>"; 
}

[generic]

Hmm, that didn't seem to work either. I'm having the worst luck lol

[hyp0r]

Here is the complete code snippet:

<?php
$datafile = "data.txt";
$data = file($datafile);
for ($i=0;$i<sizeof($data);$i++) {
	$rowdata = split("\|",trim($data[$i]));
	$newdata[$i] = $rowdata;
	$firstname[$i] = $rowdata[1];
}
array_multisort($firstname, $newdata);
for ($i=0; $i<sizeof($newdata); $i++) { 
	if($i % 2 ==0) 
		$bgcolor='#efefef'; 
	else 
		$bgcolor='#ffffff'; 
	echo "<a style=\"letter-spacing: 0 auto;\" href=\"loader.php?cid=" . $newdata[$i][0] . "\">".$newdata[$i][1]."</a><br>"; 
}
?>

[bubblenut]

/*First set up your lead array and make your multi-dim array (doing the for loop this way means 
that you only call the count function once at the begining rather than on every iteration */
for($i=0, $c=count($outpu); $i<$c; $i++) {
  //replace each element with the exploded array
  $output[$i]=explode('|', $output[$i]);
  //populate your lead array which will be used to sort your main array later on
  $lead[$i]=$output[$i][1];
}
//call the array_multisort function on your two arrays
if(array_multisort($lead, $output, SORT_ASC)) {
  echo("YAY!");
} else {
  echo("Oh dear");
}
//let's see how it looks
echo("<pre>".print_r($output, true)."</pre>");

Get it?

[edit]
Ak, hyp0r beat me :glare: 😉
[/edit]

[generic]

I got a whole lot of this trying (and some error with "split")out the previous suggestions:

Warning: array_multisort(): Argument #1 is expected to be an array or a sort flag in /home/robking/public_html/v2/clients/index.php on line 146

Anyway, I think I'm doomed to outputting the file without sorting it. Not a big deal, I guess.

Thanks for all your help folks.

[hyp0r]

There is a problem with bubblenut's code, look at the manual for [man]array_multisort/man. It should be:

if(array_multisort($lead, SORT_ASC, $output )) {

The output array comes last.