Wordpress specific order of echo post meta checkboxes - php

Question

I'm a php newbie and a first time poster.
I am working on a wordpress site where I need a discography.
I have successfully:
Created my custom post type : Albums
Added custom meta boxes and custom fields to admin post edit page
Made an archive page and echoed all the custom field meta.
http://squarerecording.com/albums/
One of my custom fields is a series of 5 checkboxes: the last line of each album on that archive page
array(
'name' => 'Services Rendered',
'desc' => 'field description (optional)',
'id' => $prefix . 'services',
'type' => 'multicheck',
'options' => array(
'R' => 'Recorded',
'Mi' => 'Mixed',
'Ma' => 'Mastered',
'P' => 'Produced',
'RMV' => 'Re-mastered for vinyl',
),
),
although I have successfully echoed the "Services Rendered" in a comma separated format, the order is different for each post (P,RMV,R,Mi,Ma-for the first one, P,Ma,Mi,R,RMV-for the second, etc.)
Here is the code for the archive page that outputs "Services Rendered":
<?php $key="sqr_services"; get_post_meta($post->ID, $key);
$sqr_services = get_post_meta( $post->ID, $key );
$comma_sep_services = implode(",", $sqr_services );
echo $comma_sep_services;
?>
My question is: What do I need to do so that they are listed in the same order that they appear on the edit page ( R,Mi,Ma,P,RMV)? Bearing in mind that they will not always ALL be checked.
I have tried messing around with unserializing but i don't know enough about it.
Any help or a point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

Answer 1

This post might be of interest. It's one of the few solutions I've seen that doesn't involve editing Wordpress core files.
You could also try this modified get_post_custom function that orders the key/value pairs by meta id instead of the "date modified" order returned by get_post_custom.
A third option would be to sift through this answer.
Update: Silly Me! PHP can sort arrays any darn way you want, and it just gets a teeny bit tricky when that's not numerical or alphabetical. If alphabetization works for you, attempt the following:
$key="sqr_services";
get_post_meta($post->ID, $key);
$sqr_services = get_post_meta( $post->ID, $key );
asort($sqr_services);
foreach ($sqr_services as $key => $val) {
echo "$val\n";
}
If you want to learn yourself more complex array sorting, be my guest. Me? I'll stick to ABCs.
Update: Silly You!
In response to your comment about checking for and displaying individual values in your $sqr_services array, alls you needs to do is check in_array():
if (in_array('Recorded', $sqr_services)){echo 'Recorded';}
if (in_array('Mixed',$sqr_services)){echo 'Mixed';}
if (in_array('Mastered',$sqr_services)){echo 'Mastered';}
if (in_array('Produced',$sqr_services)){echo 'Produced';}
if (in_array('Re-mastered for vinyl',$sqr_services)){echo 'Re-mastered for vinyl';}
It's less flexible in that if you add a value to the array (add a new tax term), it won't start showing up until you check for it in your loop. I'm guessing that's not gonna be a problem, though, as this seems like a pretty finite set of options.