Sort php array inside loop by number - php

Question

<?php
foreach ($jsonObj as $items) {
foreach ($items["items"] as $itemlist){
// $itemlist['position']; I want them to echo in that order
echo $itemlist['name'];
}
}
?>
I have an array that I loop through. In that array there is name and order. I would like to display them in numerical order, how can I make it print out the itemlist with lowest number first, then the second etc?

Answer 1

You can use usort with cmp_function for this. Try this function:
function compare_position($a, $b) {
return $a['position'] - $b['position'];
}
Then when you are iterating through the array:
foreach ($jsonObj as $items) {
usort($items['items'], "compare_position");
foreach ($items["items"] as $itemlist){
echo $itemlist['position'];
echo $itemlist['name'];
}
}
More about usort can be found here http://php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php
Hope this helps :)

Answer 2

You need to prepare an array of the positions to sort on first. Sort then sorts by reference allowing you to loop through it a second time but this time as sorted by array_multisort().
<?php
foreach($jsonObj as $items) {
foreach($items['items'] as $key => $itemlist) {
$positions[$key] = $itemlist['position'];
$names[$key] = $itemlist['name'];
}
array_multisort($positions, SORT_ASC, $items['items']);
foreach($items['items'] as $itemlist) {
echo $itemlist['name'], "<br />";
// Now in asc order of positions
}
}
The advantage of this is if other attributes come along that you want to sort on you can do that. For example if there's a chance 'position' will be the same for two people, you could then sort alphabetically by their name etc..
Full solution on Codepad, two answers compared:
http://codepad.viper-7.com/5yJ72S