sorting by smallest value in array inside of array in php

Question

I have an array of menus (breakfast, lunch, dinner) with their start times (08:00:00, 11:00:00, 16:00:00), and I need to pull out the menu closest to now() in the future and know which menu it is. This is what I have:

$menus = array(
    array("breakfast", "08:00:00"), 
    array("lunch", "11:00:00"),
    array("dinner", "16:00:00")
    );

This is how I've been getting the soonest menu (assuming it's before 8am).

foreach($menus as $a) {
     $menu[] = $a[0];
     $time[] = $a[1];
}
echo min($time);

This gets me the soonest time 08:00:00, but I can't figure out how to attach the menu to this realization. Let's say it echoes 08:00:00, how can I get the $menu in there so I can also know that 08:00:00 corresponds to "breakfast"?

possible duplicate of [Sorting arrays numerically](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1818514/sorting-arrays-numerically) — acrosman, Jul 28 '14 at 15:44

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 28 '14 at 15:35

why not

$menus = array(
    '08:00:00' => 'breakfast'
    ...
    '16:00:00' => 'dinner'
)

Times are the key, values are the menu attached to that time.

If you inside on using the two-array structure, then as long as your keys in both arrays have 1:1 correspondence in positions, you can find the key for that value, then look up in the other array:

$min = min($time);
$key = array_keys($time, $min);
$menu = $menu[$key];

raidenace · Answer 2 · 2014-07-28T15:52:10.320

While I that the array structure can be made better, I was just curious to check how to do it with your specific data-set, so here goes:

    $menus = array(
        array("breakfast","08:00:00"), 
        array("lunch","11:00:00"),
        array("dinner","16:00:00")
    );

    foreach($menus as $a) {
       $menu[] = $a[0];
       $time[] = $a[1];
    }

Considering this is how far you have reached so far, you can complete it by having a simple iterative function:

    function getMenu($time,$menus)
    {
        foreach($menus as $menu)
        {
            if($menu[1] == $time) return($menu[0]);
        }
    }

And you can call it so: echo getMenu(min($time),$menus);

Not optimal, and the data structure leaves much to be desired, but will get the job done...

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 28 '14 at 15:49

To sort the array by the lowest value, preserving the rest the keys, you can try the following:

uasort($menus, function($a, $b) { 
    return $a[1] - $b[1]; 
});

For example, if you run the above for the following array

$menus = array(
    array("dinner", "16:00:00"),
    array("breakfast", "08:00:00"), 
    array("lunch", "11:00:00"),
    array("brunch", "09:30:00")
    );

you will get the following result:

array(4) {
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(9) "breakfast"
    [1]=>
    string(8) "08:00:00"
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(6) "brunch"
    [1]=>
    string(8) "09:30:00"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "lunch"
    [1]=>
    string(8) "11:00:00"
  }
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    string(6) "dinner"
    [1]=>
    string(8) "16:00:00"
  }
}

sorting by smallest value in array inside of array in php

3 Answers3