Question

I would like to have this $sort_flags array available within the compare_by_flags function, but I didn’t find a way to this, is it possible?

public function sort_by_rank(array $sort_flags = array()) {
    uasort($this->search_result_array, array($this, 'compare_by_flags'));
}

private static function compare_by_flags($a, $b) {
    // I want to have this $sort_flags array here to compare according to those flags      
}

Answer 1

If you use php < 5.3 then you can just use instance variables:

public function sort_by_rank(array $sort_flags = array()) {
    $this->sort_flags = $sort_flags;
    uasort($this->search_result_array, array($this, 'compare_by_flags'));
}

private static function compare_by_flags($a, $b) {
    // I want to have this $sort_flags array here to compare according to those flags      
}

otherwise – use closures:

public function sort_by_rank(array $sort_flags = array()) {
    uasort($this->search_result_array, function($a, $b) use ($sort_flags) {
        // your comparison
    });
}