Sorting data and print out in alphabetic order - php

Question

I got an array which contains some data like this:
$arrs = Array("ABC_efg", "##zzAG", "#$abc", "ABC_abc")
I was trying to print the data out in this way (Printing in alphabetic order):
[String begins with character A]
ABC_abc
ABC_efg
[String begins with character other than A to Z]
#$abc
##zzAG

Answer 1

I'm going to assume you mean strings starting with a letter should appear before all other strings and all strings should otherwise be sorted in the standard order.
You use usort() and define a custom function for the ordering and ctype_alpha() to determine if something is a letter or not.
$arrs = Array("ABC_efg", "##zzAG", "#$abc", "ABC_abc");
usort($arrs, 'order_alpha_first');
function order_alpha_first($a, $b) {
$lenA = strlen($a);
$lenB = strlen($b);
$len = min($lenA, $lenB);
$i = 0;
while ($a[$i] == $b[$i] && $i < $len) {
$i++;
}
if ($i == $len) {
if ($lenA == $lenB) {
return 0; // they're the same
} else {
return $lenA < $lenB ? -1 : 1;
}
} else if (ctype_alpha($a[$i])) {
return ctype_alpha($b[$i]) ? strcmp($a[$i], $b[$i]) : -1;
} else {
return ctype_alpha($b[$i]) ? 1 : strcmp($a[$i], $b[$i]);
}
}
Output:
Array
(
[0] => ABC_abc
[1] => ABC_efg
[2] => #$abc
[3] => ##zzAG
)

Answer 2

You write a function sortArray($array, $preset=1) that splits the $array in two arrays.
($preset should be empty by default)
The first array contains all the elements that start with no special sign, the second one contains all elements that start with a special sign. You than sort the firstArray normally (sort()) and print them, and invoke the function on the second array, passing the preset.
(something like
if ($array[i][$preset] != "#") {
array_push ($firstArray ,$array[i]);
} else {
array_push ($secondArray ,$array[i]);
}
sort($firstArray);
print($firstArray);
sortArray($secondArray, $preset++);
)
It's just what came to my mind :)