I'm tring to get the contents of a textfile database and sort the data in column 10 from highest to lowest. The data in column to is numbers (AGE). The code I have been playing with isn't putting the data in the correct order .......

PHP Code:

if (!is_file("Test.txt")) { die(""); }
$file_contents = file("Test.txt"); 
foreach($file_contents as $key=>$value){
  if($file_contents[$key] != ""){
    $entry = explode("|", $file_contents[$key]);
    $entries = array('in'=>$entry[10]);
    arsort($entries, SORT_NUMERIC);
    foreach($entries as $key=>$val){
      print "$val <br>";
    }  
  }
} 


Your array $entries is being overwritten every time around the loop, so the inner loop only ever sees one value at a time. Separate out the loops so that one builds the array completely, put a sort in between and then let the second loop display them:

PHP Code:

if (!is_file("Test.txt")) { die(""); }
$file_contents = file("Test.txt"); 
$entries = array();
foreach($file_contents as $key=>$value){
  if($value != ""){
    $entry = explode("|", $value);
    $entries[] = $entry[10];
  }
}
rsort($entries, SORT_NUMERIC);
foreach($entries as $key=>$val){
  print "$val <br>";
} 


Some explanation:
$entries = Array(); creates a blank array that the loop then fills. The syntax $entries[] means 'the next available index in $entries', so the first loop fills the array $entries with successive data items from the 10th column of the file. Also you can use $value in the first loop instead of indexing the array each time.
I use rsort here instead of arsort - $entries now has numeric keys and rsort ensures the values come out sorted when you loop through them.
The final loop should print out the values in order.

Thank you.....Works perfectly! One more question, how would you display the data in the other columns along with the sorted (AGE)?

http://www.php.net/manual/en/functio...-multisort.php

^ Array multisort is what you need, in fact this PHP manual page has a code example to describe sorting database results, which is exactly what you're doing. Basically you assemble multiple arrays in the same way we assembled $entries, and then throw them all into array_multisort() with the 10th column array listed first.

o.k.. much progress but still not quite working. The "AGE" is not being displayed from highest to lowest. It simply reverses the file by column 10. I thought SORT_NUMERIC flag was supposed to do this? and the next flag SORT_DESC was supposed to reverse the list????


$file_contents = file("test.txt");
$entries = array();
foreach($file_contents as $key=>$value){
if($value != ""){
$entry = explode("|", $value);
$entries[] = array('one' => $entry[10], 'two' => $entry[4], 'three' => $entry[5]);
}
}
array_multisort($entries, SORT_NUMERIC, SORT_DESC);
foreach($entries as $key=>$val){
print "$key then $val[one] and $val[two]<br>";
}
}

Hokay, I'll have another look at this and see if I can get something working in a test environment. Watch this space.

Sorry to have left this so long, been crazy busy at work and such.

Anyway, here is what I've been testing:

PHP Code:

<?php
$file_contents = array('val1|val2|34|spam','val2|val5|10|blah','val87|val54|88|foo','val2|val4|10|bar');
$entries_one = array();
$entries_two = array();
$entries_three = array();

foreach($file_contents as $key => $value){
  if($value != ""){
    $entry = explode("|", $value);
    $entries_one[] = $entry[1];
    $entries_two[] = $entry[2];
    $entries_three[] = $entry[3];
  }
}
array_multisort($entries_three, SORT_NUMERIC, SORT_DESC, $entries_two, $entries_one);
?> <pre><?
print_r($entries_one);
print_r($entries_two);
print_r($entries_three);
?></pre>

That gets me the output:

Array
(
    [0] => val4
    [1] => val5
    [2] => val2
    [3] => val54
)
Array
(
    [0] => 10
    [1] => 10
    [2] => 34
    [3] => 88
)
Array
(
    [0] => bar
    [1] => blah
    [2] => spam
    [3] => foo
)

This demonstrates the use of array multisort.

You'll need to change $file_contents back to getting the array from your file, and then you can change which column to sort on by adding things to the foreach loop in the middle. So it might look something like this (this hasn't been tested since I don't have your test file available):

PHP Code:

if (!is_file("Test.txt")) { die(""); }
$file_contents = file("Test.txt");
$ages= array();
$names = array();
$otherdata = array();

foreach($file_contents as $key => $value){
  if($value != ""){
    $entry = explode("|", $value);
    $ages[] = $entry[10];
    $names[] = $entry[4];
    $otherdata[] = $entry[5];
  }
}
array_multisort($ages, SORT_NUMERIC, SORT_DESC, $names, $otherdata);
foreach($ages as $key => $value) {
  echo $names[$key] . " is aged " . $value . " and has data ". $otherdata[$key] ."<br />";
}