sorting doesn't work in laravel http response

Question

When I try to do asort($data) and then return it like response()->json($data, 200), the output is still in its original position.

Here's the code:

$fruits = array( 'guava', 'apple', 'orange' );
asort( $fruits );
return response()->json( $fruits, 200 );

then the output is still in its position.

{
  0: "guava",
  1: "apple",
  2: "orange"
}

But when I try to dump the data just after the sorting happen, like

$fruits = array( 'guava', 'apple', 'orange' );
asort( $fruits );
dd( $fruits );

I'm getting the right position of data.

array:3 [
  1 => "apple"
  0 => "guava"
  2 => "orange"
]

Any idea, why this happen? and how can I solve this? Im using Laravel 5.1

Have you tried `return response()->json( $fruits );` without the status 200? — Raphael Rafatpanah, Jul 14 '15 at 11:48

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

3

The fact that you can have an array with numerical index out of order in php is purely a php thing.

The json output shouldn't care about that.. it's possible that json_encode is called on the fly, or that what you're seeing is simply an optimisation from the browser (it is an object {}).

See this SO question that has some valuable input regarding this: Prevent json_encode associative array sorting.

However in your context, unless you really care about the index, asort is probably not what you want. You want sort.

Edit if you want to maintain both order and key assoc, you need to change the structure to an array of object {key,value}

Edit 2 you can reduce your array to that structure like this (php 5.4+):

$fruits = array_map(function($index,$value) {
        return ['index'=>$index,'value'=>$value];
    },array_keys($fruits),$fruits);

edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

Community

1
1

answered Jul 14 '15 at 11:55

Ben

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I need "asort()" because I need to "maintain key association". – kjames Jul 14 '15 at 12:00
Yes, you're right but that's a different structure. – kjames Jul 14 '15 at 12:13
@kjames. Yes, that's correct. What you're trying to do is only applicable in php, not json. You'll need to adapt. – Ben Jul 14 '15 at 12:28

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 14 '15 at 11:54

0

After thinking about it, the problem is that your JSON response will sort the array by keys. Since you maintain index association with asort(), that array isn't really sorted according to JSON. Use sort() instead.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.sort.php

answered Jul 14 '15 at 11:54

Raphael Rafatpanah

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Okay, but I need to "maintain key association" that's why I cannot use "sort()". – kjames Jul 14 '15 at 11:58

sorting doesn't work in laravel http response

2 Answers2