Multi-dimensional array: order does matter?

White_Coffee

I have a multi-dimensional array (stored in a cookie) containing the sort values for different categories:

Array
(
    [category1] => Array
        (
            [order] => count
            [sort] => desc
        )

[category2] => Array
    (
        [order] => title
        [sort] => asc
    )

[category3] => Array
    (
        [order] => count
        [sort] => asc
    )

)

Now i'm retrieving these values from the cookie:

$order = unserialize(stripslashes($_COOKIE['order']));

if   (array_key_exists($category, $order)) {
     $sort = $order[$category]['sort'];
     $order = $order[$category]['order'];
} else {
     $order = $default_order;
     $sort = "asc";
}

Works like a charm, no problems but here comes the question: if i swap the last two lines:

$order = $order[$category]['order'];
$sort = $order[$category]['sort'];

$sort variable is no longer available. 🙁

Being a curious person, i want to know why it's happening. I may have done something wrong in the code (i'm a beginner) but it wouldn't have worked then so any explanation is highly appreciated.

Weedpacket

It's because you're using the $order variable for two different things.

$order = $order[$category]['order'];
// Now $order is something else.
$sort = $order[$category]['sort']; // So now this won't work.

White_Coffee

Ah. Silly me. Thanks Weedpacket. Here is the modified code where the order does NOT matter anymore: 🙂

 Array
(
    [category1] => Array
        (
            [orderby] => count
            [sortby] => desc
        )

[category2] => Array
    (
        [orderby] => title
        [sortby] => asc
    )

)

$order = unserialize(stripslashes($_COOKIE['order']));

if   (array_key_exists($category, $order)) {
     $sortby = $order[$category]['sortby'];
     $orderby = $order[$category]['orderby'];
} else {
     $orderby = $default_order;
     $sortby = "asc";
}

Is this the right solution?

Weedpacket

Well, if it works then that's a good sign 🙂. As long as you disambiguate between "order" meaning "sorting rule" and "order" meaning "purchase request", you should be fine.