Question

I have this multidimensional array:

$data[] = array('name' => 'Mini 16', 'id' => 105);
$data[] = array('name' => 'Mini 15', 'id' => 5650);
$data[] = array('name' => 'Mini 100', 'id' => 9889);
$data[] = array('name' => 'Mini 20', 'id' => 587);

I want to order the array by name column sorting naturally, but is difficult for me.

The expected result:

[
    ['name' => 'Mini 15', 'id' => 5650],
    ['name' => 'Mini 16', 'id' => 105],
    ['name' => 'Mini 20', 'id' => 587],
    ['name' => 'Mini 100', 'id' => 9889]
]

Answer 1

You can use usort() to sort the array by a custom function, and use strnatcmp() to do the natural comparison of two strings like so:

usort( $data, function( $el1, $el2) { return strnatcmp( $el1['name'], $el2['name']); });

So before, your array was this:

array(4) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 16"
    ["id"]=>
    int(105)
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 15"
    ["id"]=>
    int(5650)
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(8) "Mini 100"
    ["id"]=>
    int(9889)
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 20"
    ["id"]=>
    int(587)
  }
}

And now it looks like:

array(4) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 15"
    ["id"]=>
    int(5650)
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 16"
    ["id"]=>
    int(105)
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(7) "Mini 20"
    ["id"]=>
    int(587)
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(8) "Mini 100"
    ["id"]=>
    int(9889)
  }
}

Note that for lower versions of PHP, you won’t be able to use an anonymous function, and would instead need something like this:

usort( $data, create_function( '$el1, $el2', 'return strnatcmp( $el1[\'name\'], $el2[\'name\']);' ));