Ranking?

RockMan

Ok well what i'm trying to do is write a small script that will give the ability to find a var and then place it in a top 10 listing where it should be.. i know tht doesn't make sense so i'll explain..

Lets say i want to list the person who has the most apples to the one who has the least
they have a certain number of apples
tim = 2
john =5
ruby =4
jess =2
matt =1
erin =16
tom =5
dennis = 9
cole =11
fred =3

then i need to print out from greatest to least
Erin 16
Cole 11
Dennis 9
John 5
Tom 5
Ruby 4
Fred 3
Tim 2
Jess 2

I can't seem to think of how to do it.. i know this seems completely noob to ask lol
i thought about putting it in an array but i wasn't sure how i would justify the <=

i assume i need to use sort()
from looking at the sort function you i'm not sure on how it will sort to what i number it.
i'm not quite sure how to use sort in the way that i want to use the array.
if my array is

$apples = array("tim", "john", "ruby", "jess", "matt", "erin", "tom", "dennis", "cole", "fred");

how do i justify who has how many apples before i sort it?

you don't need to just code and paste in here.. i would much rather get advice to learn from. any help would be much appreciated

RockMan

i know this isn't that hard.. isn't there anyone who can help a girl out?? i'm really new at this

travelbuff

Are you getting the data from a DB? If so, the simple way would be to add an ORDER BY clause to the select statement:

$query="SELECT name, qty_apples FROM friutlovers WHERE qty_apples > 0 ORDERY BY qty_apples DESC";

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/select.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/order-by-optimization.html
http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/tutorials/sql/online_mysql_tutorial_ordering_data.php3

RockMan

i wasn't using a DB i was substituting an array for a db..

wilku

My suggestion would be to use names as array keys and number of apples as values like

$arr = array( "Tom"=>5,"Paul"=>17,...);

then you can change the values like

$arr{"Paul"]++;

[man]sort()[/man] the array with appropriate flags (for numerical sorting), and then display sorted array with

foreach ($arr as $name=>$nr_of_apples)

suntra

Have a look at this page, should do it!

http://www.php.net/usort