PHP Order array by multiple elements - Date and Time based sorting

Question

I have an array as follows:

$array = array (
    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' => '0830',
            'End' => '1730'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' =>'1730',
            'End' => '2130'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '1100'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '0900'),           
);

I'm trying to work out how to sort this so the results are sorted first by Day and then by the earliest Start, then End.

Using the above array, the results would be:

Monday 0830-1730
Monday 1730-2130

Tuesday 0600-0900
Tuesday 0600-1100

Can any advise the best way to do this. Thanks

myxaxa · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-13 10:00:06Z

5

so, as @Daniel wrote just use usort function also you will need to check how you want to represent Day as int - check date function manual for that - in my solution N format is used, so Monday - 1 ... Sunday - 7 logic for sorting is just a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynomial

<?php

$array = array (
    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' => '0830',
            'End' => '1730'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' =>'1730',
            'End' => '2130'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '1100'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '0900'),           
);

usort($array, function($a, $b) {
    return (date("N", strtotime($a['Day'])) <=> date("N", strtotime($b['Day']))) * 100 +
           ($a['Start'] <=> $b['Start']) * 10 +
           ($a['End'] <=> $b['End']);
});

var_dump($array);

demo

answered Nov 13, 2019 at 10:00

myxaxa

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2 Comments

Rocket Over a year ago

Thanks - That seems to do exactly what I need. Thanks for the links to date and usort.

myxaxa Over a year ago

you are welcome mate! that's how SO works ^_^ peace!

Daniel Heinrich · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-13 09:52:39Z

2

The best way would be to use uasort (https://www.php.net/manual/function.uasort.php), which allows you to implement a custom compare function.

answered Nov 13, 2019 at 9:52

Daniel Heinrich

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Comments

Progrock · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-13 10:13:22Z

You can use a usort with the spaceship operater, placing your comparible keys in a arrays in order of precedence:

A flipped array is there to get numeric values 0-4 for the weekdays.

<?php

$array = array (
    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' => '0830',
            'End' => '1730'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Monday',
            'Start' =>'1730',
            'End' => '2130'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '1100'),

    array(  'Day' => 'Tuesday',
            'Start' => '0600',
            'End' => '0900'),           
);

usort($array, function($a, $b) {
    $dotw = array_flip(['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday','Friday']);
    return
        [$dotw[$a['Day']], $a['Start'], $a['End']]
        <=>
        [$dotw[$b['Day']], $b['Start'], $b['End']];
});
var_export($array);

Output:

array (
    0 => 
    array (
    'Day' => 'Monday',
    'Start' => '0830',
    'End' => '1730',
    ),
    1 => 
    array (
    'Day' => 'Monday',
    'Start' => '1730',
    'End' => '2130',
    ),
    2 => 
    array (
    'Day' => 'Tuesday',
    'Start' => '0600',
    'End' => '0900',
    ),
    3 => 
    array (
    'Day' => 'Tuesday',
    'Start' => '0600',
    'End' => '1100',
    ),
)

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