Sorting a Flat File

Anon

OK. I have a flat file that I need to sort. Non-database thing, but the txt file itself needs to be sorted in order to be brought into another program in a logical printing order.

A snippet of the txt file is as follows:

031151,,02100071281,Y1010
031151,,02114022410,Y101
031151,,02120018503,N001
888888,,02120018503
031151,,02150720000,Y101

Basically, I need to sort by lines with Y's first, then N's, and finally the blank.

With the numerical values taken into consideration.. ie, Y101 would come before Y1010...

I'm totally lost, frustrated, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

khaine

The best way to do this is to read the file into an array then you can use phps sort functions. to get them in the correct sequence copy the sort key to the start of the line. so the line would look something like

Y1010|031151,,02100071281,Y1010

the sort functions should be able to put it into order then.

Mark.

Anon

Hey Mark,

Thanks for the reply.

I think this is where I am almost getting it, but not quite.

I know that:

$stuff= file ("c:\file$s.txt");

Will bring the file into an array.

Then, each line is a different $stuff[#].

At this point, my brain throbs and I get lost. Now that I have the thing in an array, how the heck do I sort it?

Seems when I try, it's taking the first part of the line, and sorting it that way... which would make your suggestion make perfect sense... so, how would I get the end of each line to the front of it?

Thanks.

Anon

you could cut the line with substr but your data seems to be comma delimited. you could always explode the line and rebuild it with the sort field first. Something like

$bits=explode(",", $linein);
$newline=$bits[2].",".$bits[1].",".$bits[0];

?>
Stick that in a loop and it will transform each line so that sort can sort it.

Mark.

Anon

It's sort of comma delimted, only because I thought I could get the alpha character easier... it could go both ways (wish my wife would...)... anyhow...

Off to try your suggestion. Ready to smack someone.

;-)

Thanks again.

junebug

just a suggestion:

use explode() to put everything into an array. use php's array sorting functions to sort the array how you want, then use implode to put the array back together again.

links:

php.net/explode
php.net/implode
php.net/sort -- this has links to all php array sorters.