[RESOLVED] Sorting list

zzz

I have a script that reads all files in the directory and prints the list:

$dirHandle=opendir('/home/YOUR_FULL_PATH_TO_THE_DIRECTORY_/'); 
while ($file = readdir($dirHandle)) { 
    if ($file != "." and $file != "..") {
        echo $file."\n"; 
    } 
} 
closedir($dirHandle);

Question: do I have any control of the order they listed?

rincewind456

Not according to the manual but if you look at the user contributed notes there is a function to do just that.

devinemke

zzz wrote:
do I have any control of the order they listed?

spool the list into an array and then [man]sort[/man].

zzz

Great!!!

Now, I see what needs to be done, however I need help putting it all together. I've got the directory with the files formatted in the following way:

filename_0105.pdf

Now, I have a scritp that reads the files and converts the name in a readable format (eg. December 2005) :

$dirHandle=opendir('/myfullpath/updates/'); 

while ($file = readdir($dirHandle)) { 
if ($file != "." and $file != "..") { //this checks to make sure that it reads only folders.

$month1 = substr("". $file ."", -8, 1);
$month2 = substr("". $file ."", -7, 1);
$mo2dig = substr("". $file ."", -8, 2);
$mos= array($mo2dig);
$year  = substr("". $file ."", -6, 2);

if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '1'){ $month = "January"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '2'){ $month = "February"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '3'){ $month = "March"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '4'){ $month = "April"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '5'){ $month = "May"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '6'){ $month = "June"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '7'){ $month = "July"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '8'){ $month = "August"; }
if($month1 == '0' and $month2 == '9'){ $month = "September"; }
if($month1 == '1' and $month2 == '0'){ $month = "October"; }
if($month1 == '1' and $month2 == '1'){ $month = "November"; }
if($month1 == '1' and $month2 == '2'){ $month = "December"; }

echo "<a href='updates/". $file ."'>". $month ." 20". $year ."</a><br>","\n";
}
} 
closedir($dirHandle);

In order to sort the files I've created a variable and put all values into an array:

$mos= array($mo2dig);

Now, I'm at a loss of how to sort those titles based on $mos in order to have

January 2005
February 2005
March 2005

etc...

How do I get it sorted? I feel I'm close yet so far... Must be all that Zyrtec fogging my mind...

Installer

Try this:

$dirHandle = opendir('/myfullpath/updates/'); 
while ($file = readdir($dirHandle)) { 
    if (($file != '.') && ($file != '..')) {
        $month = substr($file, -8, 2);
        $year = substr($file, -6, 2);
        $array[] = strtotime($year . $month . '01');
    }
}
sort($array);
foreach ($array as $value) {
    $month_and_year = date('F Y', $value);
    echo '<a href="updates"' . $file . '">' . $month_and_year . '</a><br />'; 
}

zzz

Wow! It draws a perfect list but we lost $file in foreach statement, so the link doesn't really work... Shall it be moved into while loop?..

Installer

Sorry for the oversight.

You could do it like this:

$dirHandle = opendir('/myfullpath/updates/'); 
while ($file = readdir($dirHandle)) { 
    if (($file != '.') && ($file != '..')) { 
        $month = substr($file, -8, 2); 
        $year = substr($file, -6, 2); 
        $array[$file] = strtotime($year . $month . '01'); 
    } 
} 
sort($array); 
foreach ($array as $key => $value) { 
    $month_and_year = date('F Y', $value); 
    echo '<a href="updates"' . $key . '">' . $month_and_year . '</a><br />'; 
}

zzz

Thanks.

Actually $key => $value gives me a numeric values from 0-11 (12 files) and the link looks like update/01 isntead of update/filename_0105.pdf .
If we could just substitute that key value for the file name we'd be fine!

Thanks for the great ergonomic code design.

Installer

Sorry, again; I forgot that "sort()" loses the keys. Use "asort()" instead.

And change the echo line to

    echo '<a href="/myfullpath/updates/' . $key . '">' . $month_and_year . '</a><br />';

or whatever works. 🙂

zzz

Per-fect!

Thanks so much with helping to make this work!

zzz

I'm so sorry, I should've noticed this right away. The link is not working right now.

<a href="/myfullpath/updates/filename_' . $key . '.pdf">

gives me

/myfullpath/updates/filename_0.pdf
/myfullpath/updates/filename_1.pdf
/myfullpath/updates/filename_2.pdf
instead of
/myfullpath/updates/filename_0206.pdf
/myfullpath/updates/filename_0106.pdf
/myfullpath/updates/filename_1205.pdf

I guess I was focusing on the order the file names appear and neglected the rest...

zzz

I found what's causeing the problem.

I have changed "asort()" to "rsort()" hoping to sort from most recent to the earliest. It des sort but messes up the link... Gotta figure outhow to resolve this.

zzz

Got it - arsort not rsort. Dah!!!