Question

I need to sort an array in PHP and then sort by its second index if the first index is the same. Let me explain :

The elements would be randomly arranged :

(2,1),(4,4),(2,9),(4,8),(2,35),(2,1),(2,35),(4,4),(4,25),(4,4)

I would need to sort them by the first number first. so the result would be :

(2,1),(2,9),(2,1),(2,35),(4,4),(4,8),(4,4),(4,25),(4,4)

Now you can see all the elements are grouped by the first index together. Now i need to group by the second index “WITHIN” the current grouping. Thus make it look like :

(2,1),(2,1),(2,9),(2,35),(4,4),(4,4),(4,4),(4,8),(4,25)

This was just a simple representation of the array. The actual array is below :

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 119
            [practice_location_id] => 173
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 2
            [practice_location_id] => 75
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 18
            [practice_location_id] => 28
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 119
            [practice_location_id] => 174
        )

    [4] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 119
            [practice_location_id] => 173
        )

    [5] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 2
            [practice_location_id] => 75
        )

    [6] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 119
            [practice_location_id] => 174
        )

    [7] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 18
            [practice_location_id] => 28
        )

    [8] => Array
        (
            [practice_id] => 18
            [practice_location_id] => 27
        )
)

Would really appreciate some help.

Answer 1

This callback uses what I just learned from @casablanca’s answer, and puts it in a loop. This way, it won’t just compare two, but as many keys there are to compare.

function sort_callback($x, $y)
    foreach ($x as $key => $value) {
        if ($x[$key] != $y[$key])
            return $x[$key] - $y[$key];
    }
    return 0;
}

As already stated, give this function as a callback to usort().

http://php.net/usort