PHP - sort hash array by key length

Question

I\'ve found a few answers to sorting by value, but not key.

What I\'d like to do is a reverse sort, so with:

    $nametocode[\'reallylongname\']=\'12         


        

Answer 1

One limitation while sorting the keys on the basis of length is that: equal length keys are not re-ordered. Say we need to order the keys by length in descending order.

$arr = array(
    "foo 0" => "apple",
    "foo 1" => "ball",
    "foo 2 foo 0 foo 0" => "cat",
    "foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 0" => "dog",
    "foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 1" => "elephant",
    "foo 2 foo 1 foo 0" => "fish",
    "foo 2 foo 1 foo 1" => "giraffe"
);

debug($arr, "before sort");
$arrBad = $arr;
sortKeysDescBAD($arrBad);
debug($arrBad, "after BAD sort");
sortKeysDescGOOD($arr);
debug($arr, "after GOOD sort 2");

function sortKeysDescBAD(&$arrNew) {
    $arrKeysLength = array_map('strlen', array_keys($arrNew));
    array_multisort($arrKeysLength, SORT_DESC, $arrNew);
    //return max($arrKeysLength);
}

function sortKeysDescGOOD(&$arrNew) {
    uksort($arrNew, function($a, $b) {
        $lenA = strlen($a); $lenB = strlen($b);
        if($lenA == $lenB) {
            // If equal length, sort again by descending
            $arrOrig = array($a, $b);
            $arrSort = $arrOrig;
            rsort($arrSort);
            if($arrOrig[0] !== $arrSort[0]) return 1;
        } else {
            // If not equal length, simple
            return $lenB - $lenA;
        }
    });
}

function debug($arr, $title = "") {
    if($title !== "") echo "
{$title}
";
    echo "
"; print_r($arr); echo "
";
}

Output will be:

before sort
Array
(
    [foo 0] => apple
    [foo 1] => ball
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 0] => cat
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 0] => dog
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 1] => elephant
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 0] => fish
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 1] => giraffe
)

after BAD sort
Array
(
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 0] => dog
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 1] => elephant
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 0] => cat
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 0] => fish
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 1] => giraffe
    [foo 0] => apple
    [foo 1] => ball
)

after GOOD sort
Array
(
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 1] => elephant
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 1 foo 0] => dog
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 1] => giraffe
    [foo 2 foo 1 foo 0] => fish
    [foo 2 foo 0 foo 0] => cat
    [foo 1] => ball
    [foo 0] => apple
)

Notice the order of elephant and dog for example (or others) in two sorting methods. The second method looks better. There may be easier ways to solve this but hope this helps someone...