How to sort an array of associative arrays by value of a given key in PHP?

Question

Given this array:

$inventory = array(

   array(\"type\"=>\"fruit\", \"price\"=>3.50),
   array(\"type\"=>\"milk\", \"price\"=>2.90),
   array(\"         


        

Answer 1

Here is a method that I found long ago and cleaned up a bit. This works great, and can be quickly changed to accept objects as well.

/**
 * A method for sorting arrays by a certain key:value.
 * SortByKey is the key you wish to sort by
 * Direction can be ASC or DESC.
 *
 * @param $array
 * @param $sortByKey
 * @param $sortDirection
 * @return array
 */
private function sortArray($array, $sortByKey, $sortDirection) {

    $sortArray = array();
    $tempArray = array();

    foreach ( $array as $key => $value ) {
        $tempArray[] = strtolower( $value[ $sortByKey ] );
    }

    if($sortDirection=='ASC'){ asort($tempArray ); }
        else{ arsort($tempArray ); }

    foreach ( $tempArray as $key => $temp ){
        $sortArray[] = $array[ $key ];
    }

    return $sortArray;

}

to change the method to sort objects simply change the following line:

$tempArray[] = strtolower( $value[ $sortByKey ] ); to $tempArray[] = strtolower( $value->$sortByKey );

To run the method simply do

sortArray($inventory,'price','ASC');