How do I sort a multidimensional array by one of the fields of the inner array in PHP? [duplicate]

Question

Suppose I have an array that mimics a database table. Each array element represents a row, and within each row is another array that contains the field names and values.

Array (     [0] => Array         (             [name] => 'Sony TV'             [price] => 600.00         )      [1] => Array         (             [name] => 'LG TV'             [price] => 350.00         )      [2] => Array         (             [name] => 'Samsung TV'             [price] => 425.00         )   } 

What I want to do is sort the rows (outer array elements) by price. Below is an example of what I want to achieve:

Array (     [0] => Array         (             [name] => 'LG TV'             [price] => 350.00         )      [1] => Array         (             [name] => 'Samsung TV'             [price] => 425.00         )      [2] => Array         (             [name] => 'Sony TV'             [price] => 600.00         )         } 

As you can see, I don't need to preserve the keys of the outer array.

Answer 1

It is just a one liner

array_multisort( array_column($yourArray, "price"), SORT_ASC, $yourArray ); 

You can find it here as well: http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-multisort.php

search for "array_column" on that manual page.

UPDATE of Dec 1, 2020:

As @Tyler V. mentioned in his comment this syntax may cause errors in newer PHP 7 versions around "only variables can be passed by reference." To avoid those you need to change the one liner to a two liner unfortunately:

$col = array_column( $yourArray, "price" ); array_multisort( $col, SORT_ASC, $yourArray ); 

Answer 2

You need to use usort, a function that sorts arrays via a user defined function. Something like:

function cmp($a, $b) {     if ($a["price"] == $b["price"]) {         return 0;     }     return ($a["price"] < $b["price"]) ? -1 : 1; }  usort($yourArray,"cmp")