Raking Result of search query - php

Question

Rank Result data set
i am building meta search tool which get results from different sources in response to user query. i have saved the results in array of object having information like title, description , release date etc.before showing it on interface i want to rank them, so that most relevant result should be on top just like search engines. but i am new to ranking and don't know about it. so kindly guide me in this matter which ranking algorithm i should follow or any useful link for help.

Answer 1

I think you need to add "weighting" column (can be null) on your array of Object and just before to show the elements you need to loop on weighting if they got one.
Then your results will be shown in first and if no weight just the normal display.
Here an example :
<?php
//Function to compare weightings
function cmp($a, $b) {
if ($a == $b) {
return 0;
}
return ($a < $b) ? -1 : 1;
}
$searches = array(
'songs'=> array(
0 => array(
'title' => 'coldplay',
'weight'=> 3
),
1 => array(
'title' => 'eminem',
'weight'=> 2
),
2 => array(
'title' => 'rihanna',
'weight'=> 2
),
3 => array(
'title' => 'shakira',
'weight'=> 1
),
4 => array(
'title' => 'nirvana',
'weight'=> null
),
5 => array(
'title' => 'acdc'
)
),
);
//this foreach is used to apply the weighting on itterations
foreach($searches['songs'] as $key => $search){
//if no weight of weight is null
if(array_key_exists('weight', $search) && $search['weight']){
$array_by_weight[$key]['weight'] = $search['weight'];
$array_by_weight[$key]['title'] = $search['title'];
}else{
$array_by_weight[$key]['weight'] = 5; //Value max of weighting
$array_by_weight[$key]['title'] = $search['title'];
}
}
//We use our function to compare and sort our array
uasort($array_by_weight, 'cmp');
//display
foreach($array_by_weight as $songs){
echo $songs['title'].' | ';
echo $songs['weight'].PHP_EOL;
}
Output :
shakira | 1
eminem | 2
rihanna | 2
coldplay | 3
acdc | 5
nirvana | 5
I hope it can help you.