PHP: re order associative array

Question

In php, I would like to have the ability to re-order an associative array by moving elements to certain positions in the array. Not necessary a sort, just a re-ordering of

Answer 1

I like luky's answer the most but it requires specifying all of the keys. Most of the time you just want order a subset of the keys at the beginning of the array. This function will help then:

function reorder_assoc_array(
  $cur,   // current assoc array 
  $order  // array conaining ordered (subset of) keys in $cur
) {
  $result = [];
  // first copy ordered key/values to result array
  foreach($order as $key) {
    $result[$key] = $cur[$key];
    // unset key in original array
    unset($cur[$key]);
  }
  // ... then copy all remaining keys that were not given in $order
  foreach($cur as $key => $value) {
    $result[$key] = $value;
  }
  return $result;
}

Example:

$assoc_arr = [
  'b' => 'bbb',
  'a' => 'aaa',
  'c' => 'ccc',
  'd' => 'ffffd'
];

// suppose we want to swap the first two keys and leave the remaining keys as is
$assoc_arr = reorder_assoc_array($assoc_arr, ['a', 'b']);

// ... the order of keys is now a, b, c, d