How to sort it better? - php

Question

I have 2 arrays, both are multidimensional with same number of elements and same values, which are on different positions (those values are actually ID-s from my database, so one ID appears only once). How can I sort second array with values which are in first array?
For example - if first array looks like:
$array1[0][0] = 1;
$array1[0][x] = it doesn't matter what's here
$array1[1][0] = 4;
$array1[1][x] = it doesn't matter what's here
$array1[2][0] = 3;
$array1[2][x] = it doesn't matter what's here
...
how to sort second array so it would have same values as array1 on indexes [0][0], [1][0], [2][0], etc.
How I could solve problem is:
$i=0
while ($i < (count($array1)-2)){ // * check down
$find_id = $array1[$i][0];
// here I need to search for index of that ID in other array
$position = give_index($find_id, $array2);
// swapping positions
$temp = array2[$i][0];
$array2[$i][0] = $array2[$position][0];
$array2[$position][0] = $temp;
// increasing counter
i++;
}
function give_index($needle, $haystack){
for ($j = 0, $l = count($haystack); $j < $l; ++$j) {
if (in_array($needle, $haystack[$j][0])) return $j;
}
return false;
}
*There is only -2 because indexes start from 0 and also for the last element you don't need to check since it would be automatically sorted by last iteration of while-loop.
I don't find this solution good as I think that this is quite simple issue (maybe it's not even correct). Is there easier way in PHP that I'm missing?

Answer 1

This is the most efficient way I can think of:
function swap(&$a, &$b) {
$t = $a;
$a = $b;
$b = $t;
}
function find_index($id, $array, $from = 0) {
$index = false;
for ($i = $from, $c = count($array); $i < $c; $i++) {
if ($array[$i][0] == $id) {
$index = $i;
break;
}
}
return $index;
}
for ($i = 0, $c = count($array1); $i < ($c - 2); $i++) {
if ($array1[$i][0] != $array2[$i][0]) {
$fi = find_index($array1[$i][0], $array2, $i);
swap($array2[$i][0], $array2[$fi][0]);
}
}
What changes from yours?
I've defined a swap() function in order to swap any variable. That doesn't cost anything and makes everything look nicer. Also you can reuse that function later if you need to.
In the find_index (give_index in your code) we stop the loop once we find the correct index. Also we avoid the cost of an in_array function call.
We modified the find_index function to start only from the part of the array we haven't checked yet. Leading to a way more efficient way of scan the array.
In the for loop (a while loop was just wrong there) we stored the count of the array once, avoiding multiple calls.
Also we swap the $array2 values only if they are in the wrong place.
Other improvements
If you know anything else of the $array2 array you can make this even more performant. For example if you know that indexes are alternated like in $array1 you can change the main for loop from:
for ($i = 0, $c = count($array1); $i < ($c - 2); $i++) {
to
for ($i = 0, $c = count($array1); $i < ($c - 2); $i+2) {
(notice the $i+2 at the end) And you could do that in the find_index function as well.

Answer 2

Look into usort (http://php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php).
It provides a simple way to sort arrays using a user provided comparison function.