How do I sort an array by string length then by value in PHP?

Question

Currently, I have my array sorting by string length. But, when the string lengths are equal, how do I sort by value?

As an example, my current code:

$array = array("A","BC","AA","C","BB", "B");

function lensort($a,$b){
    return strlen($a)-strlen($b);
}

usort($array,'lensort');

print_r($array);

Outputs:

Array
(
    [0] => C
    [1] => A
    [2] => B
    [3] => BB
    [4] => AA
    [5] => BC
)

But, I'd like it to sort by the following instead:

Array
(
    [0] => A
    [1] => B
    [2] => C
    [3] => AA
    [4] => BB
    [5] => BC
)

nickb · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 00:26:31Z

11

Incorporate both checks into your comparator:

function lensort($a,$b){
    $la = strlen( $a); $lb = strlen( $b);
    if( $la == $lb) {
        return strcmp( $a, $b);
    }
    return $la - $lb;
}

You can see from this demo that this prints:

Array
(
    [0] => A
    [1] => B
    [2] => C
    [3] => AA
    [4] => BB
    [5] => BC
)

answered May 1, 2013 at 0:26

nickb

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Comments

Zombo · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-21 16:01:40Z

0

Here is another method:

$f = function ($s1, $s2) {
   $n = strlen($s1) <=> strlen($s2);
   if ($n != 0) {
      return $n;
   }
   return $s1 <=> $s2;
};
usort($array, $f);

https://php.net/language.operators.comparison

answered Jun 21, 2020 at 16:01

Zombo

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