Using natsort in PHP

Posted by admin

May 8, 2008

natsort – Sort an array using a “natural order” algorithm

Description

void natsort ( array array)

This function implements a sort algorithm that orders alphanumeric strings in the way a human being would. This is described as a “natural ordering”. An example of the difference between this algorithm and the regular computer string sorting algorithms (used in sort()) can be seen below:

Example 1. natsort() example

<?php

$array1  = $array2 = array(“img12.png”, “img10.png”, “img2.png”, “img1.png”);
sort($array1);

echo “Standard  sorting\n”;

print_r($array1);

natsort($array2); echo “\nNatural order sorting\n”; print_r($array2); ?>

The code above will generate the following output:

Standard sorting
Array
(
    [0] => img1.png
    [1] => img10.png
    [2] => img12.png
    [3] => img2.png
)

Natural order sorting
Array
(
    [3] => img1.png
    [2] => img2.png
    [1] => img10.png
    [0] => img12.png
)