PHP sorting script

Question

This may be a bit much to ask here, but what I want are some simple directions or examples of a PHP sorting script, so that I can work it out myself.

I have a webshop where I want my customers to sort their products, bases on some variables such as the price, or color of the product.

I'm building a menu on the left of my site with checkboxes where people can check the variable they want to sort with. When they check a box, the page container must refresh and only the products that match the requirements must be visible. See http://amzn.to/ryeIjF for an example of what I want to achieve.

Note that all the properties of my products are stored in a mysql database.

Use ORDER BY field1 , field2... in mysql.

piotrekkr
– piotrekkr

2011-12-21 18:44:51 +00:00
Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 18:44 — piotrekkr
– piotrekkr, Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 18:44
look at stackoverflow.com/questions/777597/…

macjohn
– macjohn

2011-12-21 18:49:57 +00:00
Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 18:49 — macjohn
– macjohn, Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 18:49

Dutchie432 · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 18:50:49Z

3

Sorting multi-dimensional arrays in PHP is actually not too difficult... I assume that's what you're looking to do (sort by price, popularity, most recent, etc..).

Assume the following structure for a multi-dimensional array $itemsArray

{[
    {
      "id" : "2643",
      "name" : "Leather Jacket",
      "price" : "249.99"
    },
    {
      "id" : "2645",
      "name" : "Suede Jacket",
      "price" : "289.99"
    },
    ...
]}

This can be sorted like...

usort($itemsArray, 'sortItemsByPrice');

function sortItemsByPrice($objA, $objB) {
    //This function returns a -1, 0, or 1 depending on the order  
    //of object A and Object B

    $aVal=$objA['price'];
    $bVal=$objB['price'];
    if ($a == $b) {  
        //or maybe sort on a secondary field
        return 0;    
    }
    return ($a < $b) ? 1 : -1;      
}

HOWEVER

If you can sort directly in SQL, do so using the ORDER BY keywords in your SQL statement

//Order by price, lowest->highest
SELECT id,name,price FROM products ORDER BY price

//Order by price, highest->lowest
SELECT id,name,price FROM products ORDER BY price desc

edited Dec 21, 2011 at 18:50

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 18:45

Dutchie432

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2 Comments

Forza Over a year ago

This is indeed kind of what I'm looking for. Within a few hours I will try to implement this on our site, and see how to make the checkboxes call the function :)

Dutchie432 Over a year ago

I have to re-state this. For the type of functionality you are looking to perform, it is probably best to do the sorting on the SQL side. It will yield MUCH faster results.

Emran · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 18:48:12Z

2

If your data is stored in MySQL database you can simply sort them when you are querying database. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/order-by-optimization.html http://php.net/manual/en/function.sort.php I think that better is to, if is possible, deal with data at their source.

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 18:48

Emran

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Comments

dm03514 · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 18:46:54Z

1

PHP shouldn't be doing the sorting for you. YOu can just make a request to your php script build a SQL query dynamically filter the values selected and have your db do the sorting for you! this is what it is made and optimized to do!!!

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 18:46

dm03514

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1 Comment

sberry Over a year ago

I won't down vote, because in most cases this is true. But, in high traffic sites it is often a requirement that application logic is used for this exact type of thing in order to offload traffic from the database.

Jeremy · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 18:43:19Z

0

Take a look at: http://php.net/manual/en/array.sorting.php

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 18:43

Jeremy

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Comments

Bhavik Patel · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 18:51:59Z

0

Use Order By clause in SQL query like this ORDER BY products or you can sort later by first retrieving result set in array using mysql_fetch_array($result) method

edited Dec 21, 2011 at 18:51

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 18:48

Bhavik Patel

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