PHP: re order associative array

Question

In php, I would like to have the ability to re-order an associative array by moving elements to certain positions in the array. Not necessary a sort, just a re-ordering of

Answer 1

i made a function based on one answer here. it takes the array of assoc array to be sorted, plus array of keys in which it should be resorted

// $data = array of assoc array
// $newKeysOrder = array("c","a","b");
function resort_assoc_array_by_keys($data, $newKeysOrder) {
  foreach($data as $v) {
    $out = [];
    foreach($newKeysOrder as $k) {
      $out[$k] = $v[$k];
    }  
    $new[] = $out;
  }
  return $new;
}

Answer 2

I like luky's answer the most but it requires specifying all of the keys. Most of the time you just want order a subset of the keys at the beginning of the array. This function will help then:

function reorder_assoc_array(
  $cur,   // current assoc array 
  $order  // array conaining ordered (subset of) keys in $cur
) {
  $result = [];
  // first copy ordered key/values to result array
  foreach($order as $key) {
    $result[$key] = $cur[$key];
    // unset key in original array
    unset($cur[$key]);
  }
  // ... then copy all remaining keys that were not given in $order
  foreach($cur as $key => $value) {
    $result[$key] = $value;
  }
  return $result;
}

Example:

$assoc_arr = [
  'b' => 'bbb',
  'a' => 'aaa',
  'c' => 'ccc',
  'd' => 'ffffd'
];

// suppose we want to swap the first two keys and leave the remaining keys as is
$assoc_arr = reorder_assoc_array($assoc_arr, ['a', 'b']);

// ... the order of keys is now a, b, c, d

Answer 3

$arr = array(
  'a' => 1,
  'b' => 2,
  'move me' => 9,
  'c' => 3,
  'd' => 4,
);

Hey, I want to move ['move me'] before ['b']. I can do it with only 4 lines of code!

$i = 0; foreach($arr as &$val) $val = array('sort' => (++$i * 10), 'val' => $val);
$arr['move me']['sort'] = $arr['b']['sort'] - 5;
uasort($arr, function($a, $b) { return $a['sort'] > $b['sort']; });
foreach($arr as &$val) $val = $val['val'];

---

I made a function for easy use:

function move_item(&$ref_arr, $key1, $move, $key2 = null)
{
  $arr = $ref_arr;
  if($key2 == null) $key2 = $key1;
  if(!isset($arr[$key1]) || !isset($arr[$key2])) return false;

  $i = 0; foreach($arr as &$val) $val = array('sort' => (++$i * 10), 'val' => $val);

  if(is_numeric($move))
  {
    if($move == 0 && $key1 == $key2) return true;
    elseif($move == 0) { $tmp = $arr[$key1]['sort']; $arr[$key1]['sort'] = $arr[$key2]['sort']; $arr[$key2]['sort'] = $tmp; }
    else $arr[$key1]['sort'] = $arr[$key2]['sort'] + ($move * 10 + ($key1 == $key2 ? ($move < 0 ? -5 : 5) : 0));
  }
  else
  {
    switch($move)
    {
      case 'up':     $arr[$key1]['sort'] = $arr[$key2]['sort'] - ($key1 == $key2 ? 15 : 5); break;
      case 'down':   $arr[$key1]['sort'] = $arr[$key2]['sort'] + ($key1 == $key2 ? 15 : 5); break;
      case 'top':    $arr[$key1]['sort'] = 5; break;
      case 'bottom': $arr[$key1]['sort'] = $i * 10 + 5; break;
      default: return false;
    }
  }
  uasort($arr, function($a, $b) { return $a['sort'] > $b['sort']; });
  foreach($arr as &$val) $val = $val['val'];
  $ref_arr = $arr;
  return true;
}

Examples:

move_item($arr, 'move me', 'up'); //move it one up
move_item($arr, 'move me', 'down'); //move it one down
move_item($arr, 'move me', 'top'); //move it to top
move_item($arr, 'move me', 'bottom'); //move it to bottom

move_item($arr, 'move me', -1); //move it one up
move_item($arr, 'move me', 1); //move it one down
move_item($arr, 'move me', 2); //move it two down

move_item($arr, 'move me', 'up', 'b'); //move it before ['b']
move_item($arr, 'move me', -1, 'b'); //move it before ['b']
move_item($arr, 'move me', 'down', 'b'); //move it after ['b']
move_item($arr, 'move me', 1, 'b'); //move it after ['b']
move_item($arr, 'move me', 2, 'b'); //move it two positions after ['b']

//Special syntax, to swap two elements:
move_item($arr, 'a', 0, 'd'); //Swap ['a'] with ['d']

I hope this helps a lot of people, because it is an awesome function! :D

Answer 4

A lot of difficult methods here :) In fact, you can exploit the preserve keys feature of array_slice().

$new_element = array('new_key' => 'value');

// if needed, find the insertion index by key
$index = array_search('key to search', array_keys($old_array));

// add element at index (note the last array_slice argument)
$new_array = array_slice($old_array, 0, $index+1, true) + $new_element + array_slice($old_array, $index+1, null, true);

Answer 5

If you mean to swap two values you could make a function like this:

function array_swap($key1, $key2, $array) {
        $newArray = array ();
        foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
            if ($key == $key1) {
                $newArray[$key2] = $array[$key2];
            } elseif ($key == $key2) {
                $newArray[$key1] = $array[$key1];
            } else {
                $newArray[$key] = $value;
            }
        }
        return $newArray;
    }

Answer 6

array_splice unfortunately doesn't work with associative arrays, so here's something a little messier:

$keys = array_keys($arr);
$values = array_values($arr);

$keyIndex = array_search($someKey, $keys);
array_splice($keys, $keyIndex, 1);
array_splice($values, $keyIndex, 1);

$insertIndex = 1;
array_splice($keys, $insertIndex, 0, array($someKey));
array_splice($values, $insertIndex, 0, array($arr[$someKey]));

$arr = array_combine($keys, $values);