Calling sort() on the array produced by file() is not sorting the accessed file contents [duplicate]

Question

I'm trying to sort an array reading it from a file. My code executes but the array in the file does not get sorted. any ideas what am I missing ?

$file = fopen("text.txt", "at");

$Array = file("text.txt");

rsort($Array);

fclose($file);

How do you know? print_r($Array); I hope you don't expect it to be written back to the file with that code. — AbraCadaver
– AbraCadaver, Commented May 1, 2017 at 21:36

khan · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-01 21:44:25Z

2

The code above will sort $Array in memory, but will not write the sorted array back to the file. This will write the sorted output back.

file_put_contents("text.txt", $Array)

Here is modified code that (with print_r statements to illustrate the sort):

<?php
$Array = file("text.txt");
print_r($Array);
rsort($Array);
print_r($Array);
file_put_contents("text.txt", $Array);

Note that rsort will sort descending order. That code will sort the following file:

Z
D
A
C

to:

Z
D
C
A

answered May 1, 2017 at 21:44

khan

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2 Comments

Thanks. You are write a was only sorting the array in memory but not making the changes on the actual file. Thank you again