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How to sort following array with PHP based on its name's prefix number and produce the output as 

    1-First
    2-Capico
    4-Apple
    10-Zebra



$array  = Array ( [0] => stdClass Object ( [term_id] => 6 [name] => 1-First [slug] => aaa-a [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 6 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 4 [count] => 2 [cat_ID] => 6 [category_count] => 2 [category_description] => [cat_name] => 1-First [category_nicename] => aaa-a [category_parent] => 4 ) 
        [1] => stdClass Object ( [term_id] => 9 [name] => 10-Zebra [slug] => aaa-f [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 9 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 4 [count] => 1 [cat_ID] => 9 [category_count] => 1 [category_description] => [cat_name] => 10-Zebra [category_nicename] => aaa-f [category_parent] => 4 ) 
        [2] => stdClass Object ( [term_id] => 8 [name] => 2-Capico [slug] => aaa-c [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 8 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 4 [count] => 1 [cat_ID] => 8 [category_count] => 1 [category_description] => [cat_name] => 2-Capico [category_nicename] => aaa-c [category_parent] => 4 ) 
        [3] => stdClass Object ( [term_id] => 7 [name] => 4-Apple [slug] => aaa-b [term_group] => 0 [term_taxonomy_id] => 7 [taxonomy] => category [description] => [parent] => 4 [count] => 1 [cat_ID] => 7 [category_count] => 1 [category_description] => [cat_name] => 4-Apple [category_nicename] => aaa-b [category_parent] => 4 ) )

Tried using

sort($array,SORT_NUMERIC);
foreach ( $array as $single ) {
echo $single->name;
}

but display the output as 

4-Apple
2-Capico
10-Zebra
1-First
share|improve this question
Thank you for all :-) – mystack Jun 10 '11 at 6:53

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted 
usort($array, function($a, $b) 
    { 
        return strnatcasecmp($a->name, $b->name); 
    });`
share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

To sort numerically:

usort($data, function($a, $b) { return $a->name - $b->name; });
share|improve this answer
Thanks for all of your response. let me try – mystack Jun 10 '11 at 6:48
2  
@stereofrog, depends on the context. e.g., 1-foo and 1-bar will be considered equal when sorting by integers. But if the prefix index is unique, then it doesn't matter. – Matthew Jun 10 '11 at 6:59
up vote 3 down vote

From PHP 5.3, you can use usort() with an anonymous function. On older versions, you can use a normal compare function as illustrated in the manual.

usort($array, function ($a, $b) {
    //saving values converted to integer
    $intAname=(int) $a->name;
    $intBname=(int) $b->name;

    //if they are equal, do string comparison
    if ($intAname == $intBname) {
        return strcmp($a->name, $b->name);
    }

    return ($intAname < $intBname) ? -1 : 1;
});

Sort order will be fine because your name strings start with numbers, so PHP will parse these variables as numbers.

UPDATE: Added integer casting as suggested by @binaryLV, and also solved the 1-foo and 1-bar problem mentioned by @konforce (with strcmp()).

share|improve this answer
"2-Capico" > "10-Zebra". I would add (int) before operands. – binaryLV Jun 10 '11 at 6:44
"Sort order will be fine because (...)" - did you try that? var_dump('2-Capico' > '10-Zebra') prints boolean true. If both strings would be numeric (rather than start with digits), then your statement would be true. – binaryLV Jun 10 '11 at 6:47
@stereofrog It won't give the right results. Now I see strnatcasecmp() used by @VolkerK, man, I did not know that one :). – bažmegakapa Jun 10 '11 at 6:47
@binaryLV Currently I cannot test it, but whenever I can, I will update. – bažmegakapa Jun 10 '11 at 6:52
That link to the manual describes how strings are converted to numbers, when such conversion is necessary. If both operands are strings and at least one of them is not numeric, then operands are not converted to numbers. To ilustrate that, var_dump('2' == '0x2', '2' == '0x2x'); will output true, false, as in first case both strings are numeric, in second case second operand is not numeric. – binaryLV Jun 10 '11 at 6:53
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