Question

I have a database table as follows:

This returns all column titles in the pic, but the one’s that are most important are slug, and parent (not sure about id_button).

The array gets ordered automatically by id_button ASC, which really irks me. But, anyways, this is not important, as I need to order it completely different, or re-order it after the array is populated.

The array returns this, by order of id_button:

$new_menu_buttons = array(
    0 => array(
            'id_button' => 1,
            'parent' => 'help',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'testing',
    ),
    1 => array(
            'id_button' => 2,
            'parent' => 'packages',
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'sub_test_1',
    ),
    2 => array(
            'id_button' => 3,
            'parent' => 'google.com',
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'another_test',
    ),
    3 => array(
            'id_button' => 4,
            'parent' => 'testing'
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'google.com',
    )
);

I need to order it so that if a slug is found within any parent, than the slug that is in the parent needs to be loaded before the one that has it defined within the parent.

Its not important if it is directly before it. For example, you see testing is the first slug that gets returned, and yet the parent for this is the last slug (google.com). So as long as the slug row where the parent is defined gets ordered so that it is BEFORE the row that has the slug value in the parent column, everything is fine.

So in this situation, it can be reordered as any of these 3 ordered arrays below:

$new_menu_buttons = array(
    0 => array(
            'id_button' => 1,
            'parent' => 'help',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'testing',
    ),
    1 => array(
            'id_button' => 2,
            'parent' => 'packages',
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'sub_test_1',
    ),
    2 => array(
            'id_button' => 4,
            'parent' => 'testing',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'google.com',
    ),
    3 => array(
            'id_button' => 3,
            'parent' => 'google.com'
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'another_test',
    )
);

OR this…

$new_menu_buttons = array(
    0 => array(
            'id_button' => 1,
            'parent' => 'help',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'testing',
    ),
    1 => array(
            'id_button' => 4,
            'parent' => 'testing',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'google.com',
    ),
    2 => array(
            'id_button' => 2,
            'parent' => 'packages',
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'sub_test_1',
    ),
    3 => array(
            'id_button' => 3,
            'parent' => 'google.com'
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'another_test',
    )
);

OR even this…

$new_menu_buttons = array(
    0 => array(
            'id_button' => 1,
            'parent' => 'help',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'testing',
    ),
    1 => array(
            'id_button' => 4,
            'parent' => 'testing',
            'position' => 'child_of',
            'slug' => 'google.com',
    ),
    2 => array(
            'id_button' => 3,
            'parent' => 'google.com'
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'another_test',
    ),
    3 => array(
            'id_button' => 2,
            'parent' => 'packages',
            'position' => 'after',
            'slug' => 'sub_test_1',
    )
);

All 3 of these ordered arrays will work because the array with the slug that matches the parent is before the array with the matching parent, and since the slug value, sub_test_1 doesn’t match any of the parent values this array order is unimportant, so that array can be located anywhere within the array.

How can I do this? I’m thinking of just looping through the array somehow and trying to determine if the slug is in any of the parents, and just do a reordering somehow…

In short, the slug needs to be ordered before the parent ONLY if there is a parent that matches a slug within the array. Otherwise, if no match is found, the order isn’t important.

Answer 1

Ok, first let me thank you all for your detailed explanations. They are very intuitive. However, I found another way, can you guys let me know if you spot anything wrong with this method here please?

Click here to see a Demo of this working!

$temp_buttons = array();
foreach($new_menu_buttons as $buttons)
    $temp_buttons[$buttons['parent']] = $buttons['slug'];


dp_sortArray($new_menu_buttons, $temp_buttons, 'slug');

// The $new_menu_buttons array is now sorted correctly!  Let's check it...
var_dump($new_menu_buttons);

function dp_sortArray(&$new_menu_buttons, $sortArray, $sort)
{
    $new_array = array();
    $temp = array();
    foreach ($new_menu_buttons as $key => $menuitem)
    {
        if (isset($sortArray[$menuitem[$sort]]))
        {
            $new_array[] = $menuitem;

            $temp[$menuitem['parent']] = $menuitem['slug'];
            unset($new_menu_buttons[$key]);
        }   
    }

    $ordered = array();

    if (!empty($new_array))
    {
        foreach ($new_array as $key => $menuitem)
        {
            if (isset($temp[$menuitem[$sort]]))
            {
                $ordered[] = $menuitem;
                unset($new_array[$key]);
            }
        }
    }
    else
    {
        $new_menu_buttons = $new_menu_buttons;
        return;
    }

    $new_menu_buttons = array_merge($ordered, $new_array, $new_menu_buttons);
}

Seems to work in all instances that I tested, but ofcourse, their could be a flaw in it somewhere. What do you all think of this?