How can I sort an alphanumerical Multidimensional Array in php?

Question

I have some json filenames in an multidimensional array, created like this: $files[] = array("name" => $file, "type" => "json") that I want to sort ascending like this:

1.File
2.File
3.File
10.File
11.File

If I order them using php sort($files) function they will be ordered like this:

1.File
10.File
11.File
2.File
3.File

If however I use natsort($files) that quote: orders alphanumeric strings in the way a human being would (php.net), I get a total mess:

3.File
2.File
10.File
1.File
11.File

Is there some better approach to order an array using php functions? Or do I have to build a custom sorting function. The server is running PHP 7.0.

Answer 1

You use multidimensional array, as you can see PHP have an error (Array to string conversion), you need to use usort for that task like:

$array = array(
    array("name"=>'1.File', "type" => "json"),
    array("name"=>'2.File', "type" => "json"),
    array("name"=>'3.File', "type" => "json"),
    array("name"=>'10.File', "type" => "json"),
    array("name"=>'11.File', "type" => "json"),
    );
usort($array, function($a, $b) {
    return ($a['name'] > $b['name'])
           ? 1 
           : ($a['name'] < $b['name'])
             ? -1 
             : 0;
});
print_r($array);

Your fiddle edited

Reference:

• usort

---

As @u_mulder suggest strnatcasecmp will improve the code like:

usort($array, function($a, $b) {
    return strnatcasecmp($a['name'], $b['name']);
});

Reference:

• strnatcasecmp