Sort an array of objects by a column

Question

I am fetching records from database which returns an array as follows:

Array
(
[0] => stdClass Object
    (
        [id] => 2
        [name] => ravi
        [text] => hey
        [date] => 2011-05-1
    )

[1] => stdClass Object

    (
        [id] => 3
        [name] => shiv
        [text] => bye
        [date] => 2011-04-29
    )

[2] => stdClass Object

    (
        [id] => 4
        [name] => adi
        [text] => hello
        [date] => 2011-04-30
    )
)

How to sort this based on the date element?

markus · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-02 15:16:16Z

3

You should sort this before you actually fetch it, meaning use the 'ORDER BY' clause already in your database query!

Why?

because you write much less code
because it is faster
because it is easier to refactor

answered May 2, 2011 at 15:16

markus

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2 Comments

venimus Over a year ago

and dont forget to add an index for the date field

Aditya Over a year ago

Thanks markus, But actually i can't use order by clause. Bcoz it is inside another foreach loop and i am simply making an array of data inside it.

Paolo Stefan · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-02 15:17:45Z

2

You may find the usort() function useful: http://docs.php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php

You could pass in as the second parameter the following function:

function cmp($a, $b)
{
    if ($a->date == $b->date) {
        return 0;
    }
    return ($a->date < $b->date) ? -1 : 1;
}

answered May 2, 2011 at 15:17

Paolo Stefan

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3 Comments

venimus Over a year ago

you might actually need this php.net/manual/en/arrayobject.uasort.php then use the above function with $arrayObject->uasort('cmp'); however you should also convert the dates to timestamp before directly comparing with < and >

markus Over a year ago

Yeah, or write a heavy framework for sorting arrays coming directly from the DB... :P

Paolo Stefan Over a year ago

@venimus you're right, I erroneously assumed they were strings: in that case the string operators (<,>) would work.

CrayonViolent · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-02 15:16:54Z

1

Ideally you should be sorting within the query itself, using ...ORDER BYdate..

..but if you really wanna do it with php, look at the user notes in the manual under sort, there are examples of how to sort like that (and you can apply with rsort() or asort() or arsort() depending on if you want to preserve keys or sort descending or whatever)

answered May 2, 2011 at 15:16

CrayonViolent

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