How do I sort a PHP array by an element nested inside?

Question

I have an array like the following:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            'name' => "Friday"
            'weight' => 6
        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            'name' => "Monday"
            'weight' => 2
        )
)

I would like to grab the last values in that array (the 'weight'), and use that to sort the main array elements. So, in this array, I'd want to sort it so the 'Monday' element appears before the 'Friday' element.

Solution 1

You can use usort as:

function cmp($a, $b) {
   return $a['weight'] - $b['weight'];
}

usort($arr,"cmp");

Solution 2

Can be done using an anonymous function.

Also if your 'weight' is a string use one of the other returns (see the commented out lines):

<?php

$arr = array(
    0 => array (
        'name'   => 'Friday',
        'weight' => 6,
    ),
    1 => array (
        'name'   => 'Monday',
        'weight' => 2,
    ),
);

// sort by 'weight'
usort($arr, function($a, $b) { // anonymous function
    // compare numbers only
    return $a['weight'] - $b['weight'];

    // compare numbers or strings
    //return strcmp($a['weight'], $b['weight']);

    // compare numbers or strings non-case-sensitive
    //return strcmp(strtoupper($a['weight']), strtoupper($b['weight']));
});

var_export($arr);

/*
array (
    0 => array (
        'name'   => 'Monday',
        'weight' => 2,
    ),
    1 => array (
        'name'   => 'Friday',
        'weight' => 6,
    ),
)
*/

Solution 3

You can also use an anonymous function.

usort($items, function($a, $b) {
    return $a['name'] > $b['name'];
});

Solution 4

try this: http://php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php

Solution 5

Agree with usort, I also sometimes use array_multisort (http://ca2.php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php) example 3, sorting database results. You could do something like:

<?php
$days = array(
  array('name' => 'Friday', 'weight' => 6),
  array('name' => 'Monday', 'weight' => 2),
);

$weight = array();
foreach($days as $k => $d) {
  $weight[$k] = $d['weight'];
}

print_r($days);

array_multisort($weight, SORT_ASC, $days);

print_r($days);
?>

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [name] => Friday
            [weight] => 6
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [name] => Monday
            [weight] => 2
        )

)
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [name] => Monday
            [weight] => 2
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [name] => Friday
            [weight] => 6
        )

)

View more solutions

Comments

[Gumbo]

You can simply use return $a['weight'] - $b['weight'];.

[pdolinaj]

This didn't work perfectly for me but this seems total correct solution: