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up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have an array of objects, I would like to sort. I would like to sort the array on two values for each object:

E.g

Array (
 [0] => "TeamName time (Id) - CoachName",
 [1] => "TeamName time (Id) - CoachName"
...
)

I would like first sort on the CoachName and then on time such that

Before sort

Array(
[0] => "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (1234) - Jack Harper",
[1] => "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (5678) - Sofia Jackson",
[2] => "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (1122) - Jack Harper",
[3] => "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (2211) - Sofia Jackson"
)

After sort

Array(
[0] => "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (1234) - Jack Harper",
[1] => "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (1122) - Jack Harper",
[2] => "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (5678) - Sofia Jackson",
[3] => "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (2211) - Sofia Jackson"
)
share|improve this question
 
Can you change the arrays? So you have coachname and time (also) as a seperate value in the array. –  putvande Nov 27 at 14:27
 
Come on... it's not so difficult, try it yourself... :-) I't just some strings evaluation inside the sort function... –  MarcoS Nov 27 at 14:30
 
How have you tried to tackle this problem? Do you have access to your data not in concatenated string form? –  afuzzyllama Nov 27 at 14:30
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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

You can use handcrafted compare function for that to supply to PHP's usort function.

$a = array(
           "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (1234) - Jack Harper",
           "FirstTeam 12:00-12:30 (5678) - Sofia Jackson",
           "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (1122) - Jack Harper",
           "SecondTeam 12:30-13:00 (2211) - Sofia Jackson"
           );

function cmpCoachTime($s1, $s2) {
  $pattern = '/(\d{2}:\d{2}).*? - ([\w\s]+)/';
  preg_match($pattern, $s1, $matches);
  $coach1 = $matches[2];
  $time1 = strtotime($matches[1]);
  preg_match($pattern, $s2, $matches);
  $coach2 = $matches[2];
  $time2 = strtotime($matches[1]);
  $coachCmp = strcmp($coach1, $coach2);
  if ($coachCmp == 0) {
    if ($time1 == $time2) {
      return 0;
    }
    return $time1 < $time2 ? -1 : 1;
  }
  return $coachCmp;
}

var_dump($a); // outputs initial array

usort($a, 'cmpCoachTime');

var_dump($a); // ouputs sorted array

Tested on your inputs and got desired output.

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up vote 1 down vote

You can find an example in the PHP docs, use array_multisort:

Link: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-multisort.php

Example of usage:

<?php
$data[] = array('volume' => 67, 'edition' => 2);
$data[] = array('volume' => 86, 'edition' => 1);
$data[] = array('volume' => 85, 'edition' => 6);
$data[] = array('volume' => 98, 'edition' => 2);
$data[] = array('volume' => 86, 'edition' => 6);
$data[] = array('volume' => 67, 'edition' => 7);



// Obtain a list of columns
foreach ($data as $key => $row) {
    $volume[$key]  = $row['volume'];
    $edition[$key] = $row['edition'];
}

// Sort the data with volume descending, edition ascending
// Add $data as the last parameter, to sort by the common key
array_multisort($volume, SORT_DESC, $edition, SORT_ASC, $data);

?>

and the sorted result:

volume | edition
-------+--------
    98 |       2
    86 |       1
    86 |       6
    85 |       6
    67 |       2
    67 |       7

Im not sure there are other / better options, but this is the first i found :).

Good luck, Stefan.

share|improve this answer
 
This won't work on OP's array I think since it is all 1 value. –  putvande Nov 27 at 14:29
 
It's not very clear how his data is saved, if it's all 1 value the sorting wouldn't be possible. It should be saved in objects anyway (OOP) :). –  Stefan Koenen Nov 27 at 14:31
1  
@putvande - perhaps the OP can figure out how to split the string into a more sort friendly data structure and then utilize this answer. –  afuzzyllama Nov 27 at 14:31
 
@StefanKoenen array_multisort wouldn't work on objects, though? –  h2ooooooo Nov 27 at 14:32
 
That's not what i ment. I ment if the data is saved in some objects he can split the data the way the example provided above wants :), thats easier i think. –  Stefan Koenen Nov 27 at 14:34
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up vote 0 down vote

I think the right structure here would be an array of associative arrays...

[
    [
        'teamName' => 'FirstTeam',
        'startTime' => '12:00',
        'endTime' => '12:30',
        'id' => '1234',
        'coachName' => 'Jack Harper',
    ],
    ...
];

It would be much easier to sort it... :-)

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