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I have an array:

   array(2) {
      [0]=>  array(17) {
        [0]=>   int(40)
        [1]=>   int(41)
        [2]=>   int(199)
        [3]=>   int(196)
        ...etc...
     }
     [1]=>  array(17) {
        [0]=>   22
        [1]=>   66
        [2]=>   12
        [3]=>   180
        ...etc...
     }
   }

I want to sort the array by the second dimension in descending order so that the first dimension is also sorted and maintains the same 'association' by index. The results I want are instead:

   array(2) {
      [0]=>  array(17) {
        [0]=>   int(196)
        [1]=>   int(41)
        [2]=>   int(40)
        [3]=>   int(199)
        ...etc...
     }
     [1]=>  array(17) {
       [0]=>   180
       [1]=>   66
       [2]=>   22
       [3]=>   12
   ...etc...
     }
   }

(I hope I did that correctly.) Yes, I know I can extract these into row->col format and then use array_multisort but there -has- to be a way to do this more elegantly/directly, right? I'm clearly not getting it.

share|improve this question
    
I don't understand what you want to do - 196, 41, 40, 199 doesn't look sorted to me? –  Emily Shepherd Apr 2 at 18:48
    
It's the second dimension a[1]. It's sorted descending 180,66,22,12. And the members of a[0] then are re-ordered to maintain the same 'relationship'. –  jchwebdev Apr 2 at 18:51

1 Answer 1

up vote 0 down vote

Try:

foreach ($arrays as &$array) {
    sort($array);
}

Since we loop through each array in your array of array using the foreach. We can sort it like sorting any other array.

e: Sorry, I forgot that you need to add the ampersand to pass the array by reference.

e2: Use arsort instead of sort to sort in descending order.

share|improve this answer
    
Nope. Obviously this is more difficult than I thought. One needs to simultaneously sort a[1] and move the matching item from a[0] to the same new position. –  jchwebdev Apr 3 at 19:14

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