Tag Array Sorting issue

Question

10/25/2012 - Still Not solved! Please see below:

My client has a WordPress Tag Cloud (tag array) with tags which include ["] character as well as [The] prefix for some tags. I.e:

"rose"
"autumn"
The Abby
The Cloud
The Elephant

Obviously all the tags enclosed in the quotations marks ["] are sorted on the top of the list and all the words starting with [The] prefix are sorted somewhere around the letter [T] (following the logical ASC order).

It was sprinkled on me that: "All tags (in the WP tag cloud) have to be ordered Ascending but those which contain the [" "] or [The] characters have to be sorted with all other tags in the chronological order, ignoring the ["] and [The] prefix.

I looked into the WP core function:

**function wp_generate_tag_cloud**

but I have no idea where to start. In the raw SQL statement, I could probably use the trim() to filter out the [" "] and [The] characters form the tag cloud array but that is only a thought which I have no idea how to apply.

Answer 1

wp_generate_tag_cloud() invokes a filter named tag_cloud_sort, which can override the sort order specified in the $args parameter. The tag_cloud_sort filter receives an array of tags and the actual $args parameter passed to wp_generate_tag_cloud(), so it can inspect the full settings of the wp_generate_tag_cloud() invocation and adjust its behavior accordingly.

You could try something like this:

function custom_tag_sort($tags, $args) {
    if ($args['orderby'] != 'name') {
        // do not reorder if sort order is not by name.
        // wp_generate_tag_cloud() is smart enough to notice order
        // is not changed and will proceed with its regular sort logic.
        return $tags;
    }
    uasort($tags, 'custom_tag_sort_compare');
}

function custom_tag_sort_compare($a, $b) {
    return strnatcasecmp(
        custom_tag_sort_normalize($a->name),
        custom_tag_sort_normalize($b->name)
    );
}

function custom_tag_sort_normalize($tag) {
    // strip quote marks
    $tag = trim($tag, '"');
    // strip leading definitive article
    $tag = preg_replace('/^\s*the\s+/i', '', $tag);
    return $tag;
}

add_filter('tag_cloud_sort', 'custom_tag_sort');

Disclaimer: I've written this after only a cursory inspection of the wp_generate_tag_cloud() function. I haven't tested it on a live WordPress installation; I have only verified that the sorting function works correctly on your sample tag cloud:

The Abby
"autumn"
The Cloud
The Elephant
"rose"