HI,

I have a script which reads an xml feed then uses a loop to insert information from that feed into a multi-dimensional array. I need to sort the array by 'day' before outputting, day is a dimension of the array.

Below is a print_r() of the array after the xml feed has been parsed.

Array 
( 
	[0] => Array 
		( 
		        	[day] => Tuesday 
			[type] => sunny intervals 
			[max] => 18°C 
			[min] => 7°C 
		) 
) 
Array 
( 
	[1] => Array 
		( 
			[day] => Wednesday 
			[type] => sunny intervals 
			[max] => 19°C 
			[min] => 10°C 
		) 
) 
Array 
( 
	[2] => Array 
		( 
			[day] => Thursday 
			[type] => sunny intervals 
			[max] => 22°C 
			[min] => 13°C 
		)
)

Seems to be in an appropriate order now. How did you want them sorted if not by the order the days come in?

Its in order now, but often the feed produces them in say for example Thursday Friday Wednesday, I just want to be able to check for that and then sort them properly.

Member Avatar for nileshgr

How did you get that array structure ? I don't get it in any way. Can give a sample code to generate that array so I can think over some sorting solution ?

Something like this could work for you if the forecast xml has 7 days or less, which I'm assuming or how would you know what days are from what week.

$sortedarray = array();

foreach($xmlarray as $forecast)
{
	switch ($forecast['day'])
	{
		case 'Sunday':
			$sortedarray[0] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Monday':
			$sortedarray[1] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Tuesday':
			$sortedarray[2] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Wednesday':
			$sortedarray[3] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Thursday':
			$sortedarray[4] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Friday':
			$sortedarray[5] = $forecast;
			break;
		case 'Saturday':
			$sortedarray[6] = $forecast;
			break;
	}
}

// If first forecast is for today
$daynum = intval(date('w',now()));  // find numerical day of week

// if first forecast is for tomorrow
// $daynum = ($daynum+1)%7;

while(isset($sortedarray[$daynum])) // loop over forecasts
{
	// process forecast
	print_r($sortedarray[$daynum]); // example process
	$daynum = ($daynum+1)%7;        // move to next day index
	unset($sortedarray[$daynum]);   // added in case of 7 day forecast
}
Member Avatar for nileshgr

I found a possible solution for this. The code is below, you can try to implement this:

<?php

$x = array(
array( 'day' => 'Friday' ),
array( 'day' => 'Monday' ),
array( 'day' => 'Sunday' ),
array( 'day' => 'Wednesday'),
array( 'day' => 'Thursday'),
array( 'day' => 'Saturday'),
array( 'day' => 'Tuesday'),
array( 'day' => 'Thursday'));

usort($x, 'cmp');

print_r($x);

function cmp($a, $b) {
  
  $d1 = date('w', strtotime($a['day']));
  $d2 = date('w', strtotime($b['day']));

  if($d1 < $d2) {
    return -1;
  } elseif($d1 == $d2) {
    return 0;
  } elseif($d1 > $d2) {
    return 1;
  }

}
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