PHP-How To Pair Up items in Array based on condition

Question

How can I pair up items in an array? Let\'s say I have an array of Fighters. And I want to pair them up based on their Weights. Fighters with c

Answer 1

I liked your question a lot, so I made a full robust version of it.

name   = $name;
            $this->weight = $weight;
            $this->team   = $team;
        }
    }

    /**
     * @function sortFighters()
     *
     * @param $a Fighter
     * @param $b Fighter
     *
     * @return int
     */
    function sortFighters(Fighter $a, Fighter $b) {
        return $a->weight - $b->weight;
    }

    $fighterList = array(
        new Fighter("A", 60, "A"),
        new Fighter("B", 65, "A"),
        new Fighter("C", 62, "B"),
        new Fighter("D", 60, "B"),
        new Fighter("E", 64, "C"),
        new Fighter("F", 66, "C")
    );
    usort($fighterList, "sortFighters");

    foreach ($fighterList as $fighterOne) {
        if ($fighterOne->paired != null) {
            continue;
        }
        echo "Fighter $fighterOne->name vs ";
        foreach ($fighterList as $fighterTwo) {
            if ($fighterOne->team != $fighterTwo->team && $fighterTwo->paired == null) {
                echo $fighterTwo->name . PHP_EOL;
                $fighterOne->paired = $fighterTwo;
                $fighterTwo->paired = $fighterOne;
                break;
            }
        }

    }

1. First, the fighters are kept in classes, which makes it easier to assign properties to them (if you haven't done so yourself, I urge you to do!)
2. Make an array of fighters, and assign them names, weights and teams.
3. sort the array by weight (using usort() and a sorting function sortFighters() to sort by the weight property of each element.
4. Iterate through the array and match based on:
   1. Fighter one is not already matched
   2. Fighter two is not on the same team as Fighter one
   3. Fighter two is not already matched
5. When a match is found, store the object pointer of each matching fighters to each other (So it's not null anymore, plus you can access each of fighters' pairs by going to $fighterVariable->paired)
6. Finally, print the result.