Help with sorting

[EricOnAdventure]

I am creating an automatic English Resume writing program for non-Native English speakers and all has went well so far, but some people simply don't understand that the resume should be reverse chronological so i need to sort the jobs by year.

 

Each job looks something like this

 

$JOBDISPLAY10a= "<div><div class='colleft'>". $Jobtitle10a.", ". $Company10a.", ". $Jobcountry10a.
"</div><div class='colright'>". $JOBSTART10a." - ".$JOBFINISH10a."</div></div>".
$jobdutyfull10a. "<br>";

 

I then

echo $JOBDISPLAY10a

echo $JOBDISPLAY11a

ect.

I know that this is pretty good foundation to sort the jobs but I am unsure of how to sort the echo $JOBDISPLAYX variables by the $JOBFINISHX variables, especially since $JOBFINISHX could = Present. What makes this even tougher is that multiple jobs may be listed as "present" Meaning that I would have to order them, and only them, with $JOBSTARTX.

I've tried various approaches but I cannot get it to function in a reverse chronological sense with Present at the top. Any ideas?

Thanks

-Eric

[Barand]

If you have the data in a database, sort it when you retrieve the date using an ORDER BY clause.

 

Otherwise, don't use variables like $JOBDISPLAY10, $JOBDISPLAY11, use an array and sort the array.

 

EG

<?php
$jobdisplay = [
             10 => [ 'title'   => 'Job title 10',
                     'company' => 'Company name 10',
                     'country' => 'Somewhere',
                     'start'   => '2016-05-01',
                     'finish'  => 'present',
                     'duties'  => 'description of duties ...'
                     ],
             11 => [ 'title'   => 'Job title 11',
                     'company' => 'Company name 11',
                     'country' => 'Somewhere else',
                     'start'   => '2014-01-01',
                     'finish'  => '2014-12-31',
                     'duties'  => 'another description of duties ...'
                     ],
             12 => [ 'title'   => 'Job title 12',
                     'company' => 'Company name 12',
                     'country' => 'Somewhere',
                     'start'   => '2016-04-01',
                     'finish'  => 'present',
                     'duties'  => 'yet another description of duties ...'
                     ],
             13 => [ 'title'   => 'Job title 13',
                     'company' => 'Company name 13',
                     'country' => 'Somewhere other',
                     'start'   => '2015-01-01',
                     'finish'  => '2016-03-31',
                     'duties'  => 'and yet another description of duties ...'
                     ]
        ];
        
function customSort($a, $b)
{
    $finA = $a['finish']=='present' ? date('Y-m-d') : $a['finish'];
    $finB = $b['finish']=='present' ? date('Y-m-d') : $b['finish'];
    
    $x = strcmp($finB, $finA);
    // if same finish dates, sort by start date
    if ($x==0) {
        return strcmp($b['start'], $a['start']);
    }
    return $x;
}

usort($jobdisplay, 'customSort');

echo '<pre>';
foreach ($jobdisplay as $j) {
    printf('%-20s | %-15s | %-15s<br>', $j['title'], $j['start'], $j['finish']);
}
echo '</pre>';
?

Gives

Job title 10         | 2016-05-01      | present        
Job title 12         | 2016-04-01      | present        
Job title 13         | 2015-01-01      | 2016-03-31     
Job title 11         | 2014-01-01      | 2014-12-31    

[EricOnAdventure]

Wow, ingenious!

Thanks for your expertise Barand.