Sort two dimensional array in php

function recordSort()

It will sort 2d array. It is really helpful as most PHP sort functions provides facility for sorting 1d array & multi dimensional array sorting is not handy.

Normally this function will help u.. if u r displaying some records n u want sorting by clicking on some column. basically same is achieved by direct SQL changes like ORDER BY ASC/DESC.

but in case, if your records are not actual records, this function will help.

i.e. some table has following fields in DB.
name, email, telephone, are_you_married

are_you_married is either 0 / 1

now u r displaying N for 1 and Y for 0

and you want sorting on are_you_married on display. then ORDER BY ASC/DESC. will not work. So, try this…

/* function to sort 2d array, PHP sort functions i.e. sort(), ksort() etc provides facility for sorting only 1d array */

function recordSort($records, $field, $reverse, $defaultSortField = 0)
{
    $uniqueSortId = 0;
    $hash = array();
    $sortedRecords = array();
    $tempArr = array();
    $indexedArray = array();
    $recordArray = array();

     foreach($records as $record) {
         $uniqueSortId++;
         $recordStr = implode("|", $record)."|".$uniqueSortId;
         $recordArray[] = explode("|", $recordStr);
     }

      $primarySortIndex = count($record);

      $records = $recordArray;

      foreach($records as $record) {
         $hash[$record[$primarySortIndex]] = $record[$field];
      }

       uasort($hash, "strnatcasecmp");

       if($reverse)
       $hash = array_reverse($hash, true);

       $valueCount = array_count_values($hash);

       foreach($hash as $primaryKey => $value)  {
           $indexedArray[] = $primaryKey;
       }           

        $i = 0;
        foreach($hash as $primaryKey => $value)   {
          $i++;

          if($valueCount[$value] > 1)  {
             
             foreach($records as $record)  {
                if($primaryKey == $record[$primarySortIndex])  {
                    $tempArr[$record[$defaultSortField]."__".$i] = $record;
                    break;
                }
             }

             $index = array_search($primaryKey, $indexedArray);

             if(($i == count($records))||($value != hash[$indexedArray[$index+1]])) {
                uksort($tempArr, "strnatcasecmp");

                if($reverse)
                $tempArr = array_reverse($tempArr);

                foreach($tempArr as $newRecs)  {
                  $sortedRecords [] = $newRecs;
                }

                $tempArr = array();
              }
           }
           else {
            foreach($records as $record)   {
              if($primaryKey == $record[$primarySortIndex]) {
                 $sortedRecords[] = $record;
                 break;
              }
            }
           }
         }

         return $sortedRecords;
}

$array[0][0] = 'nilesh';   // sort_index = 0
$array[0][1] = 'yogesh';   // sort_index = 1
$array[0][2] = 'aakash';   // sort_index = 2
$array[0][3] = '100';      // sort_index = 3
$array[0][4] = 'nilesh';   // sort_index = 4
$array[0][5] = 'Nil100';   // sort_index = 5
$array[0][6] = 'Y';        // sort_index = 6

$array[1][0] = 'Nil100';
$array[1][1] = '1001';
$array[1][2] = 'nilesh';
$array[1][3] = 'nilesh';
$array[1][4] = 'nilesh';
$array[1][5] = 'yogesh';
$array[1][6] = 'Nil100';

$array[2][0] = 'Nil100';
$array[2][1] = 'Y';
$array[2][2] = '100';
$array[2][3] = '10nilesh';
$array[2][4] = 'aakash';
$array[2][5] = '_aakash';
$array[2][6] = 'aakash_';

echo "array before sorting..."
print_r($array);

/* $sortedList = recordSort(2d_array, sort_index, reverse, second_level_sort_index_if_duplicates_found_default_is_0 = '0'); */

$sortedList = recordSort($array, 4, 0, 5);

echo "array after sorting..."
print_r($sortedList);