Strings > Integers for sorting

[Anon]

I'm using PHP to read an html page and find some numbers on the page and then put those numbers into an array to sort and use. The problem is that the "numbers" are coming in as a string, so when I use arsort, it sorts them to be something like:

91
95
98
57
35
23
174
142
123
101

Obviously it's sorting them by the first part of the number, then the second, then third, etc. just like it would alphabetically sort some names. I've tried using settype to set the numbers to integers and it just get's rid of every number below 100 for some reason. Any ideas?

[Anon]

Well, if you want to sort integers, try using a sorting function. Here is a quick one I just drew up for the bubble sort, maybe it'll work for you.

function bubble_sort($number_array) {
$size = count($number_array);
for ($i = 1; $i < $size; $i++) {
for ($j = $size - 1; $j >= $i; $j--) {
if ($number_array[$j-1] > $number_array[$j]) {
$temp = $number_array[$j-1];
$number_array[$j-1] = $number_array[$j];
$number_array[$j] = $temp;
}
}
}
return $number_array;
}

Just an example, send it an array if integers, it will sort and return them. Like:

$numarray = array(3, 4, 1, 2, 8, 5, 6, 7);
$sorted_array = bubble_sort($numarray);

now, $sorted_array has what you need. Not the BEST answer, of course, but hey remembering stuff from comp sci one always gives me that little taste of nostalgia 🙂

Hope that helps:

Chris King

[Anon]

What happens if you cast the numbers to ints before adding them
to the array?

[Anon]

I actually found a different method to get the info I needed, but I hadn't tried casting them to ints BEFORE they were in the array. I'll have to remember that one. Thanks.

Phred.