How can you sort each element inside of an array alphabetically

Question

For example we have the following words: hey, hello, wrong

$unsorted = array("eyh", "lhleo", "nrwgo");

I know that I could use asort to sort the array alphabetically, but I don't want that. I wish to take the elements of the array and sort those, so that it would become something like this:

$sorted = array("ehy", "ehllo", "gnorw"); // each word in the array sorted

hey sorted = ehy

hello sorted = ehllo

wrong sorted = gnorw

As far as I know, the function sort will only work for arrays, so if you attempt to sort a word using sort, it will produce an error. If I had to assume, I will probably need to use a foreach along with strlen and a for statement or something similar, but I am not sure.

Thanks in advance!

use `str_split` to create an array, sort that and then `implode` to create a string again. — Bart Friederichs, Jul 23 '13 at 06:58
I think it's already answered here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9912469/php-how-to-sort-the-characters-in-a-string — Ismail Faruqi, Jul 23 '13 at 06:59
Thank you Bart, I will definitely take not of that! Christian, I wish I was in school to have homework, truth is I am self taught and program as a hobby, and this issue was confusing me a bit. lory, of course not. — Ninjex, Jul 23 '13 at 07:21

Mark Baker · Answer 1 · 2013-07-23T08:07:46.663

1

$myArray = array("eyh", "lhleo", "nrwgo");
array_walk(
     $myArray,
     function (&$value) {
         $value = str_split($value);
         sort($value);
         $value = implode($value);
     }
);
print_r($myArray);

edited Jul 23 '13 at 08:07

answered Jul 23 '13 at 06:58

Mark Baker

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For those who complain that closures don't work in PHP 5.2, upgrade! PHP 5.2 is very old now, and no longer supported; even PHP 5.3 is no longer supported. PHP 5.5.1 is the current version, and PHP 5.2 is officially 2 years past its end-of-life date – Mark Baker Jul 23 '13 at 08:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 23 '13 at 07:01

function sort_each($arr) {
    foreach ($arr as &$string) {
        $stringParts = str_split($string);
        sort($stringParts);
        $string = implode('', $stringParts);
    }
    return $arr;
}

$unsorted = array("eyh", "lhleo", "nrwgo");
$sorted = sort_each($unsorted);
print_r($sorted); // returns Array ( [0] => ehy [1] => ehllo [2] => gnorw )

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 23 '13 at 07:02

Try this

$unsorted = array("eyh", "lhleo", "nrwgo");
$sorted = array();
foreach ($unsorted as $value) {
$stringParts = str_split($value);
sort($stringParts);
$sortedString =  implode('', $stringParts);
array_push($sorted, $sortedString);
}
print_r($sorted);

How can you sort each element inside of an array alphabetically

3 Answers3