Need help understanding usort

[valeryan]

I don't really get how to build the costume sort functions for usort. I have read the usort discription in the php manuel and I think it will do what I want, but I just don't really understand how it works. I have a script that is for pulling information off of my teamspeak server and displaying it on my website at www.oieonline.org. I want to sort the arrays that are built by the foreach functions alphabtically. this is the script that I have. Can someone possible help me understand how to sort these arrays. I want to sort the $chanUsers array, and the $offline[4] array. Any help would be appreciated.

<?php
require("cyts.class.php");
$cyts = new cyts;
$cyts->connect("xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx", 51234, 8767) or print "Cannot connect to server.";
$cyts->login("adminuser", "password");
$list = $cyts->info_channelList();
$users = $cyts->admin_dbUserList();
$tsusers = $cyts->info_playerList();
$tsserv = $cyts->info_serverInfo();
echo "<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"center\" class=\"team\">";
$server=false;
if ($tsserv[server_name] == NULL) $server=true;
if ($server == true) { echo "<tr><td>The server is Offline</td></tr>"; } else { echo "
     <tr>
        <td colspan=\"3\" align=\"left\" nowrap=\"nowrap\">
        <img src=\"images/teamspeak_online.png\" alt=\"TS server\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" />
        $tsserv[server_name]
        </td>
      </tr>";}
foreach ($list as $channel) {
echo "
     <tr>
        <td nowrap=\"nowrap\" align=\"left\">
        <img src=\"images/treeimage4.png\" alt=\"blank\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
        <img src=\"images/channel.png\" alt=\"TS channel\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
        $channel[name]:
         </td>
       </tr>";  

   $chanUsers = $cyts->info_channelUser($channel["id"]);
//Array that I want to sort is here
      foreach ($chanUsers as $user) {
echo "
       <tr>
         <td nowrap=\"nowrap\" align=\"left\">
         <img src=\"images/treeimage4.png\" alt=\"blank\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
         <img src=\"images/treeimage3.png\" alt=\"tree\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
         <img src=\"images/online.gif\" alt=\"online\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" />
         $user[nick]
         </td>
       </tr> ";
   }

}
echo "
      <tr>
         <td height=\"12\">
         <br />
         <p>
         <img src=\"images/black.gif\" width=100 height=1 vspace=1 alt=\"line\">
         <br /> Members Offline:<br />
         <img src=\"images/black.gif\" width=100 height=1 vspace=1 alt=\"line\">
         </p>
         </td>
      </tr>";

foreach ($users as $offline) {
//Go through the memberlist
$online = false;
//At first we believe he/she is offline
foreach ($tsusers as $tsuser)
{
//Go through the list of users which are online in TS
if ($tsuser["loginname"] == $offline[5]) $online = true;
//If someone who is online in TS is logged in with the member's loginname change the status to true
}


//If he is online print nothing else print offline
if ($online ==false) echo "
      <tr>
        <td title=\"last login $offline[4]\" align=\"left\" valign=\"middle\">
        <img src=\"images/treeimage4.png\" alt=\"blank\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
        <img src=\"images/treeimage4.png\" alt=\"blank\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"  />
        <img src=\"images/offline.gif\" alt=\"offline\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" />
        $offline[5]
        </td>
      </tr>
";
} echo"</table>
       <br />";
?> 

[laserlight]

I want to sort the $chanUsers array, and the $offline[4] array.

That's easy enough. How do these arrays look like?

[valeryan]

Thanks for the reply. My knowledge of php is really general and only recently have I been brave enuff to start playing around with arrays. I know that you can output the entirity of an array but I'm not really sure how to do that either. the class that I am using to query my teamspeak server builds the arrays from the info gather from the server. however if it helps you can look at what the script outputs on my site at www.oieonline.org/team.php in the meantime I will try figure out what is actually in the arrays I am playing with. 😕

[laserlight]

Well, you only use usort() if you have some special sorting criteria. If not, you would use [man]sort/man, [man]natsort/man etc. This is why we would need to know the structure of your arrays to help you use usort().

[valeryan]

I couldn't figure out how to output the whole array but I read through the notes on the class I am using and the array I am trying to sort I believe looks like this.

array:
[0], [unparsed] => Unparsed playerstring
[1], [p_id] => PlayerID
[2], [c_id] => ChannelID
[3], [ps] => Packets sent by server
[4], [bs] => Bytes sent by server
[5], [pr] => Packets received by server
[6], [br] => Bytes received by server
[7], [pl] => Packet Loss
[8], [ping] => Ping
[9], [logintime] => Seconds since Login
[10], [idletime] => Idletime in seconds
[11], [cprivs] => Channelflags (1 - CA, 2 - O, 4 - V, 8 - AO, 16 - AV)
[12], [pprivs] => Serverflags (1 - SA, 2 - Allowed To Register(AR), 4 - R, 8 - ???, 16 - Sticky)
[13], [pflags] => Playerflags (1 - Channel Commander(CC), 2 - Voice Request(VR), 4 - No Whisper(NW), 8 - Away(AW), 16 - Mic Muted(MM), 32 - Snd Muted(SM), 64 - Rec(RC))
[14], [ip] => IP-Adress (Note: This will be 0.0.0.0 for all players if you are not logged in as a server admin)
[15], [nick] => Nickname
[16], [loginname] => Loginname (empty if user is not registered)

I want to sort it by [nick] alphabetically.

the second array looks like this

array:
[0] => Unparsed DB-Row
[1] => Userid
[2] => Serveradmin (0 - False, -1 - True)
[3] => Account created
[4] => Last Login
[5] => Username

and I am trying to sort it by [5]

Is this the information that you need. thanks

[laserlight]

For the first you would use:

usort($array, create_function('$a, $b', 'return strcmp($a["nick"], $b["nick"]);'));

For the second you would use:

usort($array, create_function('$a, $b', 'return strcmp($a[5], $b[5]);'));

Basically, you need to provide a comparison function. This comparison function takes two arguments, each of which is an element of the array to be sorted. Here I use [man]create_function/man to create an anonymous function in-place, and then I use [man]strcmp/man to actually compare the elements.

[valeryan]

Thanks Laserlight that worked perfect. Seeing how you compared the elements in the array actually helped me to understand how this command works. I really appreciate your help and now I can stop banging my head against the wall. thanks for all your help