Array Sorting Question for News System - php

Question

I'm currently stuck trying to figure out how to sort my array files. I have a simple news posting system that stores the content in seperate .dat files and then stores them in an array. I numbered the files so that my array can sort them from lowest number to greatest; however, I have run into a small problem. To begin here is some more information on my system so that you can understand it better.
The function that gathers my files is:
function getNewsList() {
$fileList = array();
// Open the actual directory
if($handle = opendir(ABSPATH . ADMIN . "data")) {
// Read all file from the actual directory
while($file = readdir($handle)) {
if(!is_dir($file)) {
$fileList[] = $file;
}
}
}
// Return the array.
return $fileList;
}
On a seperate file is the programming that processes the news post. I didn't post that code for simplicity's sake but I will explain how the files are named. The files are numbered and the part of the post's title is used... for the numbering I get a count of the array and add "1" as an offset. I get the title of the post, encode it to make it file-name-friendly and limit the amount of text so by the end of it all I end up with:
// Make the variable that names the file that will contain
// the post.
$filename = "00{$newnumrows}_{$snipEncode}";
When running print_r on the above function I get:
Array (
[0] => 0010_Mira_mi_Soledad.dat
[1] => 0011_WOah.dat
[2] => 0012_Sinep.dat
[3] => 0013_Living_in_Warfa.dat
[4] => 0014_Hello.dat
[5] => 001_AS.dat
[6] => 002_ASASA.dat
[7] => 003_SSASAS.dat
...
[13] => 009_ASADADASADAFDAF.dat
)
And this is how my content is displayed. For some reason according to the array sorting 0010 comes before 001...? Is there a way I can get my array to sort 001 before 0010?

Answer 1

You can use natcasesort(array) function of php which will sort an array using a "natural order" algorithm and you will get the desired output
HTH.
:Malay

Answer 2

Take the filename and extract the prefix number as integer number:
// $filename has the format: "00{$newnumrows}_{$snipEncode}"
function generateSortKey($filename)
{
$separatorPos = stripos($filename, '_');
$prefix = trim(substr($filename, 0, $separatorPos));
return intval($prefix);
}
Than create an associative array from the list of files, the keys will be used as sortable value later:
function toSortableArray($files)
{
$result = array();
foreach ($files as $filename)
{
$key = generateSortKey($filename);
$value = $filename;
$result[$key] = $value;
}
return $result;
}
and at last use krsort():
$list = getNewsList();
$sortableList = toSortableArray($list);
krsort($sortableList); // after that $sortableList is
// sorted by key in descending order now
FIX: ksort() => krsort()

Answer 3

The issue is with underscore. Always numerical characters get sorted before underscore.
See whether you get the desired result using sort($your_array, SORT_NUMERIC).
For more info, refer PHP Manual for sort
You may also use natcasesort() (as Malay suggested) or natsort(). But both maintain index association.