Sorting time in an array with foreach in PHP

Question

$result = array("test" => "21:00", "test" => "11:00", "test" => "19:00", "test" => "04:00");
$sortedArray = array();
foreach ($result as $test => $mealTime) {
    if () {
        array_push($sortedArray, $mealTime);
    }
}

This is what I have done right now. I would like to make a new array out of the $result array. And in this new array I would like it to be sorted out from the meal times.

As you see in the current $result array it is unsorted as 04:00 which is in the end of the array is lower than 21:00.

So the correct array would be: 04:00, 11:00, 19:00, 21:00 (in the above example).

How can I do this? The above code is just an example of what I tried and then got stuck at writing a if statement to it..

Answer 1

Keep the first item from your list inside a variable called smallest. Then scan your list from second item (Position 1). Compare those with smallest (That is a if condition). If you find something smaller that smallest, change the value of smallest to that. When you done scanning the array for first run, add the smallest to new array, pop it from old array and repeat above step until original list is empty.

You should using built in one since the above method has a performance issue.

You might want to look at this link for demo on different sorting algorithm. It's written in JAVA but shouldn't be hard to convert JAVA to PHP

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~harrison/Java/sorting-demo.html

Answer 2

It doesn't matter how you sort that array it won't work

try

var_dump($result);

this is what I get

array(1) { ["test"]=> string(5) "04:00" } 

By declaring an array with the same key field "test" in this case, just overwrites the previous value for the same key field

Essentially what you are doing when you create your array is the equivalent to this

$result["test"] = "21:00";
$result["test"] = "11:00";
$result["test"] = "19:00";
$result["test"] = "04:00";

I have changed your code to make it work as I think you want it to

$result = array("21:00", "11:00", "19:00", "04:00");

    asort($result);

    foreach($result as $v) {
        echo "$v<br />";
    }

Answer 3

First of all: do you really need an index as a string? You always use "test"? Is this just an example?

If you don't need it, simply do this:

One dimensional array

<?php

$result = array('21:00', '11:00', '19:00', '04:00', '01:00', '13:45', '02:45', '00:00');
sort($result, SORT_STRING);

var_dump($result);

?>

Output:

array(8) { [0]=> string(5) "00:00" [1]=> string(5) "01:00" [2]=> string(5) "02:45" [3]=> string(5) "04:00" [4]=> string(5) "11:00" [5]=> string(5) "13:45" [6]=> string(5) "19:00" [7]=> string(5) "21:00" } 

---

Using a multi-dimensional array (based on the code you provided in the comment)

This sample does what you want but it's not the way I would do it. I recommend using a class instead a second array. This is much cleaner and uses a more advanced coding style. As far as I see from your example your are creating the arrays manually so it does not result in a big change.

<?php

// Define a custom compare function that uses the inner array of your
// multi-dimensional array.
function compareMealTime($a, $b)
{
    return strcmp($a['MealTime'], $b['MealTime']);
}

$result = array();
$result[0] = array('blabla' => 123123, 'MealTime' => '21:00');
$result[1] = array('assd' => 123123, 'MealTime' => '02:00');
$result[2] = array('blabsdsddla' => 123123, 'MealTime' => '00:00');
$result[3] = array('bladddbla' => 123123, 'MealTime' => '04:00');

uasort($result, 'compareMealTime');

var_dump($result);

?>

Output:

array(4) { [2]=> array(2) { ["blabsdsddla"]=> int(123123) ["MealTime"]=> string(5) "00:00" } [1]=> array(2) { ["assd"]=> int(123123) ["MealTime"]=> string(5) "02:00" } [3]=> array(2) { ["bladddbla"]=> int(123123) ["MealTime"]=> string(5) "04:00" } [0]=> array(2) { ["blabla"]=> int(123123) ["MealTime"]=> string(5) "21:00" } } 

Otherwise you can use sort(), asort() as Liam Allan suggested or uasort().

Check Sorting Arrays for a comparison of these functions to find out the one that best fits your needs.

Answer 4

try the php function asort()

$sortedArray = asort($result);