Ordering different associative arrays

[s_shrum]

I'm recoding a script of mine to not use databases (MySQL) in an effort to get more coding experience and to lower the number of external dependencies.

Right now I'm trying to build a associative array ordering loop but have hit a snag.

I found the following on PHP.net: http://us3.php.net/array_multisort - Example 3; but that example deals with a known set of array key names. I want to create a loop that would allow me to deal with any associative array. The arrays are always 2-dimensioned and will have column names for key values like this:

Datastruct 1:

$aData[0]['foo'] = ...
$aData[0]['bar'] = ...
$aData[0]['this'] = ...
$aData[0]['that'] = ...

Datastruct 2:

$aData[0]['ID'] = ...
$aData[0]['first'] = ...
$aData[0]['middle'] = ...
$aData[0]['last'] = ...
$aData[0]['age'] = ...

Datastruct 3:

$aData[0]['part #'] = ...
$aData[0]['description'] = ...

As you can see, the number of columns and column names will never be the same all the time.

How do you set up a foreach loop that would allow one to define sorts on any combination of columns when an ordering value(s) is defined like:

• foo
• foo,this
• bar,that
• last,first,middle

TIA

[laserlight]

You might look into [man]usort/man

[s_shrum]

usort (from the looks of things) only does 1 direction sorting (I may be wrong but all the samples look that way).

array_multisort allows one to do 1st col asc, 3nd col desc, etc. so I still think the multisort is the key...I just need to set up a loop that will use it.