Question

I am trying to sort an array sent from an XML feed.

The Array looks like this from print_r($answer);:

Array
(
[size] => Array
    (
        [0] => 1.5m x 1.5m
        [1] => 1.5m x 3m
        [2] => 3m x 6.0m
        [3] => 3m x 2.3m
    )

[rate] => Array
    (
        [0] => 80
        [1] => 135
        [2] => 295
        [3] => 180
    )

[sortorder] => Array
    (
        [0] => 3
        [1] => 4
        [2] => 1
        [3] => 2
    )
.
.
.
)

I want to get out the array:

    Array
(
[size] => Array
    (
        [0] => 3m x 6.0
        [1] => 3m x 2.3m
        [2] => 1.5m x 1.5m
        [3] => 1.5m x 3m
    )

[rate] => Array
    (
        [0] => 295
        [1] => 180
        [2] => 80
        [3] => 135
    )

[sortorder] => Array
    (
        [0] => 1
        [1] => 2
        [2] => 3
        [3] => 4
    )
.
.
.
)

What I am trying to do is use the Sort Order sub array to display the items in that order

I have tried a number of uasort() and array_multisort() examples, but all seem to order the sub arrays and not the values inside the sub arrays

Any ideas will be a great help. Cheers

Answer 1

This one sorts $answer['sortorder'] and uses those keys to sort the rest of $answer without restructuring first.

// sort $answer['sortorder'] and retrieve indices.
asort($answer['sortorder']);
$idx = array_keys($answer['sortorder']); 

// do sorting
$sorted = array();
foreach($answer as $key=>$subarr) {
    if ($key != 'sortorder') { // don't sort
    foreach($idx as $i) {
        $sorted[$key][] = $subarr[$i];
    }
    } else {
        // $answer['sortorder'] is already sorted.
        $sorted[$key] = $subarr;
    }
}
print_r($sorted);

See it in action here.