Ordered List Group Numbers, Symbols - php

Question

I currently have code that displays data like so:
1
11 Title Here
2
21 Guns
A
Awesome
Using this:
foreach($animes as $currentAnime){
$thisLetter = strtoupper($currentAnime->title[0]);
$sorted[$thisLetter][] = array('title' => $currentAnime->title, 'id' => $currentAnime->id);
unset($thisLetter);
}
How do I group all numbers to a #, and all Symbols to a ~?
Like so:
#
11 Title Here
21 Guns
~
.ahaha
A
Awesome
Thank you for the advice.

Answer 1

You can check with is_numeric() if this is a number and with preg_match() if this is a symbol.
foreach($animes as $currentAnime){
$thisLetter = strtoupper($currentAnime->title[0]);
if(is_numeric($thisLetter))
{
$sorted['#'][] = array('title' => $currentAnime->title, 'id' => $currentAnime->id);
}
else if(preg_match('/[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/', $thisLetter))
{
$sorted['~'][] = array('title' => $currentAnime->title, 'id' => $currentAnime->id);
}
else
{
$sorted[$thisLetter][] = array('title' => $currentAnime->title, 'id' => $currentAnime->id);
}
unset($thisLetter);
}
[^a-zA-Z0-9]+ - fits letter if there are no a-z letters also no A-Z characters nor 0-9 digits there can be added characters that will not suit as well you didn't precise what characters fits so I've added to regex basics. Moreover, you can check also if there is a letter only by [a-zA-Z]+ and add this to string group and last "else" statement will be for strings that aren't numeric neither strings.