array sort

[mrhappiness]

function sort_array(&$array, $col = NULL, $dir = SORT_ASC, $natsort = true, $keep_keys = false) {
	//check whether sorting is really neccessary
	if (!is_array($array) or count($array) < 2)
		return;

//detect column name
if (is_null($col))
	$col = current(array_keys(current($array)));

//if array index is not a number warp it into '
if (!is_numeric($col))
	$col = "'".$col."'";

//keep array indices or not?
$sort = $keep_keys ? 'uasort' : 'usort';

//do natural sort?
$natsort = $natsort ? 'strnatcmp' : 'strcmp';

//check sort order
if ($dir == SORT_DESC)
	$natsort = '-1 * '.$natsort;

//do sorting
$sort($array, create_function(
	'$a, $b', 
	'return '.$natsort.'($a['.$col.'], $b['.$col.']);')
);

}

$a = array(
	array('id' => 5, 'name' => 'pic 3'),
	array('id' => 7, 'name' => 'pic 43'),
	array('id' => 3, 'name' => 'pic 12'),
	array('id' => 1, 'name' => 'pic 17'),
	array('id' => 11, 'name' => 'pic 2'),
);
echo '<pre>'.print_r($a, true).'</pre>';

sort_array($a, 'name', SORT_DESC);

echo '<pre>'.print_r($a, true).'</pre>';

can be used to sort an array by one index/column.

what do you think?
what can be improved?

[bubblenut]

I'm a quite tired at the moment so I'm not so sure of this statement but won't it cause an error if you provide it with a one dimentional array, or an array of more dimetions than two for that matter? Prehapse some recurrsion to handle different orientations of array?

[mrhappiness]

i wish i had seen that while writing this (and i was quite awakw.. well, at least i thought so)

i corrected it and implemented functionality to sort using an index not in the 2nd dimension

function sort_array(&$array, $cols, $dir = SORT_ASC, $natsort = true, $keep_keys = false) {
  //check whether sorting is really neccessary
  if (!is_array($array) or count($array) < 2)
    return;

  $col = array();

  //$cols has to be an array
  if (!is_array($cols))
    $cols = array($cols);

  //check whether sorting is possible
  $check = $array[current(array_keys($check))];
  foreach ($cols as $col_sort) {
    if (!isset($check[$col_sort]))
      return;
    $col[] = is_numeric($col_sort) ? $col_sort : "'".$col_sort."'";
    $check = $check[$col_sort];
  }

  //keep array indices or not?
  $sort = $keep_keys ? 'uasort' : 'usort';

  //do natural sort?
  $natsort = $natsort ? 'strnatcmp' : 'strcmp';

  //check sort order
  if ($dir == SORT_DESC)
    $natsort = '-1 * '.$natsort;

  //convert sort columns
  $col = implode('][', $col);

  //do sorting
  $sort($array, create_function(
    '$a, $b',
    'return '.$natsort.'($a['.$col.'], $b['.$col.']);')
  );
}

$a = array(
  array('id' => 5, 'name' => 'pic 3', 'user' => array('nick' => '1st nick', 'mail' => '[e-mail]')),
  array('id' => 7, 'name' => 'pic 43', 'user' => array('nick' => '4th nick', 'mail' => '[e-mail]')),
  array('id' => 3, 'name' => 'pic 12', 'user' => array('nick' => '2nd nick', 'mail' => '[e-mail]')),
  array('id' => 4, 'name' => 'pic 17', 'user' => array('nick' => '3rd nick', 'mail' => '[e-mail]')),
  array('id' => 11, 'name' => 'pic 2', 'user' => array('nick' => '5th nick', 'mail' => '[e-mail]')),
);
echo '<pre>'.print_r($a, true).'</pre>';

sort_array($a, array('user', 'mail'), SORT_DESC);

echo '<pre>'.print_r($a, true).'</pre>';