How to sort an array of items as numbers?

Question

I have a number of files I am loading into a slideshow, I have them numbered by the client in the order that they'd like to be displayed.

I'm grabbing them with glob $pics = glob("images/slideshow/*.jpg", GLOB_NOSORT); but for some reason I'm getting the old Windows sorting bug, of 11 being sorted above 2.

For example,

Array
(
    [0] => images/slideshow/1.jpg
    [1] => images/slideshow/14.jpg
    [2] => images/slideshow/15.jpg
    [3] => images/slideshow/16.jpg
    [4] => images/slideshow/18.jpg
    [5] => images/slideshow/2.jpg
    [6] => images/slideshow/20.jpg
    [7] => images/slideshow/21.jpg
    [8] => images/slideshow/22.jpg
    [9] => images/slideshow/23.jpg
    [10] => images/slideshow/24a.jpg
    [11] => images/slideshow/25.jpg
    [12] => images/slideshow/26.jpg
    [13] => images/slideshow/29.jpg
    [14] => images/slideshow/3.jpg
    [15] => images/slideshow/36.jpg
    [16] => images/slideshow/38.jpg
    [17] => images/slideshow/4.jpg
    [18] => images/slideshow/40.jpg
    [19] => images/slideshow/41.jpg
    [20] => images/slideshow/5.jpg
    [21] => images/slideshow/6.jpg
    [22] => images/slideshow/7.jpg
)

I've run it through asort() and I can't seem to find out why this isn't working, short of it being something about them being strings, rather than strictly numbers.

it's not a bug, php would treat your path as string as it's supposed to do, you need to tell it specifically to sort based on the filename — Andreas Wong
– Andreas Wong, Commented Mar 21, 2012 at 18:21
@DavidYell please search SO (and ideally elsewhere) for answers before posting a question. — salathe
– salathe, Commented Mar 21, 2012 at 18:42
@salathe I did search, in the PHP tag for this, but after two attempts at different wording, I couldn't find an answer which worked. Apologies. — David Yell
– David Yell, Commented Mar 22, 2012 at 16:53

webbiedave · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-21 18:21:15Z

6

Check out natsort:

This function implements a sort algorithm that orders alphanumeric strings in the way a human being would while maintaining key/value associations.

$array2 = array("img12.png", "img10.png", "img2.png", "img1.png");

print_r($array2);

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

answered Mar 21, 2012 at 18:21

webbiedave

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1 Comment

David Yell Over a year ago

Genius, I've not seen that function before. Thanks!

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