I wrote a wrapper for usort that lets you use something similar to an SQL ORDER BY clause. It can sort arrays of associative arrays and arrays of objects and I think it would work with some hybrid case.
Example of how the function works:
<?php
$testAry = array(
array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3),
array('a' => 2, 'b' => 1, 'c' => 3),
array('a' => 3, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 1),
array('a' => 1, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 2),
array('a' => 2, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 1),
array('a' => 3, 'b' => 1, 'c' => 2)
);
Utility::orderBy($testAry, 'a ASC, b DESC');
$testAry = array(
array('a' => 1, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 2),
array('a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3),
array('a' => 2, 'b' => 3, 'c' => 1),
array('a' => 2, 'b' => 1, 'c' => 3),
array('a' => 3, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 1),
array('a' => 3, 'b' => 1, 'c' => 2)
);
?>
To sort an array of objects you would do something like:
Utility::orderBy($objectAry, 'getCreationDate() DESC, getSubOrder() ASC');
This would sort an array of objects that have methods getCreationDate() and getSubOrder().
Here is the function:
<?php
class Utility {
public static function orderBy(&$ary, $clause, $ascending = true) {
$clause = str_ireplace('order by', '', $clause);
$clause = preg_replace('/\s+/', ' ', $clause);
$keys = explode(',', $clause);
$dirMap = array('desc' => 1, 'asc' => -1);
$def = $ascending ? -1 : 1;
$keyAry = array();
$dirAry = array();
foreach($keys as $key) {
$key = explode(' ', trim($key));
$keyAry[] = trim($key[0]);
if(isset($key[1])) {
$dir = strtolower(trim($key[1]));
$dirAry[] = $dirMap[$dir] ? $dirMap[$dir] : $def;
} else {
$dirAry[] = $def;
}
}
$fnBody = '';
for($i = count($keyAry) - 1; $i >= 0; $i--) {
$k = $keyAry[$i];
$t = $dirAry[$i];
$f = -1 * $t;
$aStr = '$a[\''.$k.'\']';
$bStr = '$b[\''.$k.'\']';
if(strpos($k, '(') !== false) {
$aStr = '$a->'.$k;
$bStr = '$b->'.$k;
}
if($fnBody == '') {
$fnBody .= "if({$aStr} == {$bStr}) { return 0; }\n";
$fnBody .= "return ({$aStr} < {$bStr}) ? {$t} : {$f};\n";
} else {
$fnBody = "if({$aStr} == {$bStr}) {\n" . $fnBody;
$fnBody .= "}\n";
$fnBody .= "return ({$aStr} < {$bStr}) ? {$t} : {$f};\n";
}
}
if($fnBody) {
$sortFn = create_function('$a,$b', $fnBody);
usort($ary, $sortFn);
}
}
}
?>