Question

Using the below for sorting a multidimensional array by screen name:

$sortArray = array();

foreach($members as $member){
    foreach($member as $key=>$value){
        if(!isset($sortArray[$key])){
            $sortArray[$key] = array();
        }
        $sortArray[$key][] = $value;
    }
}

$orderby = "screen_name";

array_multisort($sortArray[$orderby],SORT_ASC,$members);

But uppercase is being sorted before lowercase:

Allan
Brenda
Greg works

But Frank comes before dan

There’s a lot out there on sorting arrays, but I finally got this working using the above, wanted to see if there was an easy way to fix it?

Answer 1

uasort() should work for you

<?php

// custom sort function
function sort_by_screen_name($a, $b) {

    // compare using lowercase strings only
    $a = strtolower($a['screen_name']);
    $b = strtolower($b['screen_name']);

    if ($a == $b) {
        return 0;
    }

    return ($a < $b) ? -1 : 1;
}

$members = array(
    array('screen_name'=>'Greg'),
    array('screen_name'=>'Allen'),
    array('screen_name'=>'dan'),
    array('screen_name'=>'Brenda'),
);

// uasort() like a boss!
uasort($members, 'sort_by_screen_name');

print_r($members);

Output

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [screen_name] => Allen
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [screen_name] => Brenda
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [screen_name] => dan
        )

    [0] => Array
        (
            [screen_name] => Greg
        )

)

Note: the original array keys are preserved using this method. If you’d like the keys to be rewritten, you can simply use usort().