Laravel 5: Sorting Arrays With sort

The sort helper method will allow you to sort the given $array based on some condition returned by the $callback. The method works by iterating over all the values in the $array and passing the values it finds into the $callback function. It then uses the value returned by the callback to determine sort order.

#Signature

The signature of the sort method is:

1public static function sort(
2    $array,
3    $callback = null
4);

#Example Use

Let's refactor our students example from the where section to use a class based structure. First, we will create a new StudentTestResult class:

 1class StudentTestResult {
 2 
 3    public $name      = '';
 4 
 5    public $testScore = '';
 6 
 7    public function __construct($name, $testScore)
 8    {
 9        $this->name      = $name;
10        $this->testScore = $testScore;
11    }
12 
13}

At this point we can build a new $testScores array:

1$testScores = [
2    new StudentTestResult('Alice', 95),
3    new StudentTestResult('Allison', 96),
4    new StudentTestResult('Bob', 92),
5    new StudentTestResult('Delbert', 72),
6    new StudentTestResult('Dennis', 87),
7    new StudentTestResult('Tonya', 32)
8];

Now, the $testScores array will look like this:

 1array {
 2    object(StudentTestResult) {
 3        ["name"]      "Alice"
 4        ["testScore"] 95
 5    }
 6    object(StudentTestResult) {
 7        ["name"]     "Allison"
 8        ["testScore"] 96
 9    }
10    object(StudentTestResult) {
11        ["name"]     "Bob"
12        ["testScore"] 92
13    }
14    object(StudentTestResult) {
15        ["name"]      "Delbert"
16        ["testScore"] 72
17    }
18    object(StudentTestResult) {
19        ["name"]     "Dennis"
20        ["testScore"] 87
21    }
22    object(StudentTestResult) {
23        ["name"]      "Tonya"
24        ["testScore"] 32
25    }
26}

We want to see the students that have the worst test scores first, so that we can offer them extra help, or just to see what's going on:

1use Illuminate\Support\Arr;
2 
3$sortedScores = Arr::sort($testScores, function($student)
4{
5    // Sort the student's scores by their test score.
6    return $student->testScore;
7});

The $sortedScores array will now look like this:

 1array {
 2    object(StudentTestResult) {
 3        ["name"]      "Tonya"
 4        ["testScore"] 32
 5    }
 6    object(StudentTestResult) {
 7        ["name"]      "Delbert"
 8        ["testScore"] 72
 9    }
10    object(StudentTestResult) {
11        ["name"] "Dennis"
12        ["testScore"] 87
13    }
14    object(StudentTestResult) {
15        ["name"]      "Bob"
16        ["testScore"] 92
17    }
18    object(StudentTestResult) {
19        ["name"]      "Alice"
20        ["testScore"] 95
21    }
22    object(StudentTestResult) {
23        ["name"]      "Allison"
24        ["testScore"] 96
25    }
26}

Alternatively, we can sort the array based on the student's name:

1use Illuminate\Support\Arr;
2 
3$sortedScores = Arr::sort($testScores, function($student)
4{
5    // Sort the student's scores by their name.
6    return $student->name;
7});

And now the $sortedScores array would look like this:

 1array {
 2    object(StudentTestResult) {
 3        ["name"]      "Alice"
 4        ["testScore"] 95
 5    }
 6    object(StudentTestResult) {
 7        ["name"]      "Allison"
 8        ["testScore"] 96
 9    }
10    object(StudentTestResult) {
11        ["name"]      "Bob"
12        ["testScore"] 92
13    }
14    object(StudentTestResult) {
15        ["name"]      "Delbert"
16        ["testScore"] 72
17    }
18    object(StudentTestResult) {
19        ["name"]      "Dennis"
20        ["testScore"] 87
21    }
22    object(StudentTestResult) {
23        ["name"]      "Tonya"
24        ["testScore"] 32
25    }
26}

A> ## Array Sort Considerations

#Global array_sort Helper Function

The array_sort function is a shortcut to calling Arr::sort. This function is declared in the global namespace.

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