“Simple” sort a nested array using array_multisort or native PHP functions instead of my own foreach loop

Question

I have the following array of days of the week, with each day having hours of the day (the whole array represents the schedule of a part-time employee):

Array
    (
        [7] => Array
            (
                [0] => 15
                [1] => 14
                [2] => 13
                [3] => 11
                [4] => 12
                [5] => 10
            )

        [1] => Array
            (
                [0] => 10
                [1] => 13
                [2] => 12
            )

        [6] => Array
            (
                [0] => 14
            )

        [3] => Array
            (
                [0] => 4
                [1] => 5
                [2] => 6
            )

    )

and I simply need to:

sort asc each sub-array (2nd dimension) - no need to maintain the numeric keys, values are integers
sort asc the 1st dimension and maintain the numeric, integer keys

ie:

Array
    (
        [1] => Array
            (
                [0] => 10
                [1] => 12
                [2] => 13
            )

        [3] => Array
            (
                [0] => 4
                [1] => 5
                [2] => 6
            )

        [6] => Array
            (
                [0] => 14
            )

        [7] => Array
            (
                [0] => 10
                [1] => 11
                [2] => 12
                [3] => 13
                [4] => 14
                [5] => 15
            )

    )

Additional info:

only the keys of the 1st dimension and the values of the 2nd dimension (and of course their association) are meaningful to my use-case
the 1st dimension can have at most 7 values, ranging from 1-7 (days of the week), and will have at least 1 value (1 day)
the 2nd dimension can have at most 24 values, ranging from 0-23 (hours of each day), and will have at least 1 value (1 hour per day)

I know I can do this with a foreach on the whole ksorted array and sort each 2nd dimension array:

ksort($sched);
foreach ($sched as &$array) sort($array);
unset($array);

but I was hoping I could achieve this with native php array function(s) instead.

My search led me to try array_multisort(array_values($array), array_keys($array), $array) but I just can't make it work.

bsdnoobz · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-24 07:02:42Z

up vote -1 down vote accepted

This is the best we can do:

ksort($arr);
foreach ($arr as $k => $v)
  array_multisort($arr[$k]);

answered May 24 '12 at 7:02

bsdnoobz
6,7932732

	thanks, @bsdnoobz , 'preciate the answer. – Ana Ban May 24 '12 at 7:17
	ok, i don't know what happened to the other answers here, but they're gone! anyways, i chose this one for EXACTLY answering my question, but in the end i just did `sort` instead of `array_multisort` in this bit. thanks, @bsdnoobz – Ana Ban May 24 '12 at 9:34
	array_multisort with only one array is completely useless, I'd say. It is the same as using `sort($arr[$k])` - and thats what the original poster started with. – Sven Oct 13 '12 at 9:27

Sven · Answer 2 · 2012-10-13 09:31:36Z

At the end of the day, you really have TWO sorting tasks to fulfill. The first is to sort the outer array by key. The second is to sort the inner arrays by value. Both sorting is independent from each other.

The best solution is the one you already found. array_multisort() will not help you, because that is made for sorting that actually depends on each other, like "sort by last name - if equal, sort by first name". But it should really be avoided, because defining a sorting function and using usort() and friends much better communicates what you are actually sorting.

pinaldesai · Answer 3 · 2012-05-24 07:25:33Z

up vote -1 down vote

TRY following line

array_multisort(array_values($array), array_keys($array), ksort($array))

This may raise a warning but you can avoid it by error_reporting(0) if it really resolve the issue.

answered May 24 '12 at 7:25

pinaldesai
1,0961215

Coding something that needs to avoid warnings should never be done. Fix the problem instead. – Sven Oct 13 '12 at 9:27

asked	1 year ago
viewed	166 times
active	11 months ago

“Simple” sort a nested array using array_multisort or native PHP functions instead of my own foreach loop

3 Answers

Your Answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged php function sorting multidimensional-array or ask your own question.

“Simple” sort a nested array using array_multisort or native PHP functions instead of my own foreach loop

3 Answers

Your Answer

Sign up or login

Post as a guest

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged php function sorting multidimensional-array or ask your own question.

Related