Sort an Array by keys based on another Array?

Question

Is it possible in PHP to do something like this? How would you go about writing a function? Here is an example. The order is the most important thing.

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Answer 1

First Suggestion

function sortArrayByArray($array,$orderArray) {
    $ordered = array();
    foreach($orderArray as $key) {
        if(array_key_exists($key,$array)) {
            $ordered[$key] = $array[$key];
            unset($array[$key]);
        }
    }
    return $ordered + $array;
}

Second Suggestion

$properOrderedArray = array_merge(array_flip(array('name', 'dob', 'address')), $customer);

I wanted to point out that both of these suggestions are awesome. However, they are apples and oranges. The difference? One is non-associative friendly and the other is associative friendly. If you are using 2 fully associative arrays then the array merge/flip will actually merge and overwrite the other associative array. In my case that is not the results I was looking for. I used a settings.ini file to create my sort order array. The data array I was sorting did not need to written over by my associative sorting counterpart. Thus array merge would destroy my data array. Both are great methods, both need to be archived in any developers toolbox. Based on your needs you may find you actually need both concepts in your archives.