PHP Manual: usort

Description

bool usort ( array &array, callback cmp_function )

This function will sort an array by its values using a user-supplied comparison function. If the array you wish to sort needs to be sorted by some non-trivial criteria, you should use this function.

The comparison function must return an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the first argument is considered to be respectively less than, equal to, or greater than the second.

Note: If two members compare as equal, their order in the sorted array is undefined. Up to PHP 4.0.6 the user defined functions would keep the original order for those elements, but with the new sort algorithm introduced with 4.1.0 this is no longer the case as there is no solution to do so in an efficient way.

Note: This function assigns new keys for the elements in array. It will remove any existing keys you may have assigned, rather than just reordering the keys.

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Example 1. usort() example

<?php
function cmp($a, $b) 
{
    if ($a == $b) {
        return 0;
    }
    return ($a < $b) ? -1 : 1;
}

$a = array(3, 2, 5, 6, 1);

usort($a, "cmp");

foreach ($a as $key => $value) {
    echo "$key: $value\n";
}
?>

The above example will output:

0: 1
1: 2
2: 3
3: 5
4: 6

Note: Obviously in this trivial case the sort() function would be more appropriate.

Example 2. usort() example using multi-dimensional array

<?php
function cmp($a, $b) 
{
    return strcmp($a["fruit"], $b["fruit"]);
}

$fruits[0]["fruit"] = "lemons";
$fruits[1]["fruit"] = "apples";
$fruits[2]["fruit"] = "grapes";

usort($fruits, "cmp");

while (list($key, $value) = each($fruits)) {
    echo "\$fruits[$key]: " . $value["fruit"] . "\n";
}
?>

When sorting a multi-dimensional array, $a and $b contain references to the first index of the array.

The above example will output:

$fruits[0]: apples
$fruits[1]: grapes
$fruits[2]: lemons

Example 3. usort() example using a member function of an object

<?php
class TestObj {
    var $name;

    function TestObj($name) 
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    /* This is the static comparing function: */
    function cmp_obj($a, $b) 
    {
        $al = strtolower($a->name);
        $bl = strtolower($b->name);
        if ($al == $bl) {
            return 0;
        }
        return ($al > $bl) ? +1 : -1;
    }
}

$a[] = new TestObj("c");
$a[] = new TestObj("b");
$a[] = new TestObj("d");

usort($a, array("TestObj", "cmp_obj"));

foreach ($a as $item) {
    echo $item->name . "\n";
}
?>

The above example will output:

b
c
d