Question

i need to implement some specfic sorting algorithm. I have two arrays:

$items = array(
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "alpha"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "beta"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "company"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "marketing"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "beta"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "company"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "alpha"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "alpha"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "company"),
  array("id" => "…", "type" => "marketing"),
  […]
);

$order = array("company", "marketing", "alpha", "beta" );

As you propably can imagine i need to sort $items according to the order specified in $order.

Answer 1

You can sort with a custom comparison function using usort

usort($items, "cmp");

function cmp($a, $b)
{
  $order = array("company" => 0, "marketing" => 1, "alpha" => 2, "beta" => 3);

  $order_a = $order[$a["type"]];
  $order_b = $order[$b["type"]];

  if ($order_a == $order_b) {
    return 0;
  }
  return ($order_a < $order_b) ? -1 : 1;
}