sorting a multi-dimension associative array

bdee1

i am creating a php file which will parse an XML file and output it to the screen. the xml file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<linkCollection>
	<linkGroup id="Photoshop">
		<linkItem id="2">
			<title>blairdee.info</title>
			<description>This is the second link</description>
			<url>http://www.blairdee.info</url>
		</linkItem>
		<linkItem id="4">
			<title>Fandango</title>
			<description>This is the fourth Link</description>
			<url>http://www.fandango.com</url>
		</linkItem>
		<linkItem id="1">
			<title>Google</title>
			<description>This is the first link</description>
			<url>http://www.google.com</url>
		</linkItem>
		<linkItem id="3">
			<title>Microsoft Windows 7 Website</title>
			<description>This is the third link</description>
			<url>http://www.microsoft.com/windows7</url>
		</linkItem>
	</linkGroup>
</linkCollection>

i want to be able to output each <linkitem> to the screen, but order it by linkItem's id attribute.

I have an idea in mind but please tell me if there is a simpler/better way.

i was thinking to create a two dimensional array where each element contained an associative array with elements to contain the info from the XML (title, description, url, id).

but once i have it in that array, would it be possible to sort the first dimension of the array by the id key of the second dimension?

or am i going about this all wrong??

could use some advice here.

farius

<?php
$fruits = array("d" => "lemon", "a" => "orange", "b" => "banana", "c" => "apple");
arsort($fruits);
foreach ($fruits as $key => $val) {
    echo "$key = $val\n";
}
?>

Taken from the php manual

Now just implement this for you scenario

How I would do it is

Get each link item, put the idivudal into an array, add that array to an array with the key of a, then b, (or use INT's but I am not sure if asort works with INT's)

after the creation of the multi-dimensional array, asort it.

I can't give you an actual example right now, but if I get a chance later I will try and get you one, but no guarantees!

Hope that helps,

Farius

Weedpacket

bdee1 wrote:
but once i have it in that array, would it be possible to sort the first dimension of the array by the id key of the second dimension?

It certainly would be possible. You might use the [man]array_multisort[/man] function; an alternative is to write a function that could take two elements of the array and decide which is the larger (by looking at their id elements), and then use that in [man]uasort[/man].