Question

I have a two-dimensional array and want to sort it by name. I would like to use usort() with anonymous functions. How should my comparator function look like when I want to sort something alphabetically?

[names] => Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [name] => Baba
            [prename] => Ali
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [name] => Pan
            [prename] => Peter
        )

)

To sort, I tried this:

usort($names, function cmp($a, $b) {
    return strcmp($a['name'], $b['name']);
});

which gives me unexpected T_STRING, expecting '(' on the first line.

Answer 1

The bug was not so obvious, but thinking again about the concept of anonymous functions, I got the hint. The function name can’t be there. The correct solution for my exact problem is

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