php - sort list by multiple variables

Question

I'm using the code below to sort a list of users by their first name, but I need help with the sortByName function because I'd like to sort the list by last name as a secondary. so if there are two Bob's, instead of ordering them randomly, it will order them alphabetically by last name. I tried adding an if statement for when the first names are identical, but I just ended up breaking it somehow...

function sortByName($a, $b) {
    // if($a['first'] == $b['first']) // commented out because it doesn't work
    //     return $a['last'] > $b['last'];
    // else
           return $a['first'] > $b['first']; // this works on its own
}

$a = array( // of usernames // );
$userList = array();

foreach($a as $b) {
    $id = $users->fetch_info('id', 'username', $b); // get users' id from their username
    $userList[] = $users->userdata($id); // get users' information (like first and last name)
}

usort($userList, 'sortByName');

foreach($userList as $profile) {
    $u = $profile['username'];
    $first = $profile['first'];
    $last = $profile['last'];

    include 'user-list.php';
}

Halcyon · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-18 16:57:13Z

1

Check if the first names are similar, then fall back to last name.

function sortByName($a, $b) {
    if ($a["first"] === $b["first"]) { // 2 Bobs!
        return strcmp($a["last"], $b["last"]);
    }
    return strcmp($a["first"], $b["first"]);
}

I used strcmp, use strcasecmp for case-insensitive sorting and strnatcmp for natural order sort.

Natural order sort deals mostly with numbers: "a200" should come after "a3".

answered Jun 18, 2014 at 16:57

Halcyon

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