Sort Array by Array?

[barkster]

I want to be able to sort an array by another array. I Found this website http://www.the-art-of-web.com/php/sortarray/ looks like what I want to do in section 6. Sorting based on a list of values but I have no idea what $b is and how to implement this?  Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

$data = array( array("name" => "Mary Johnson", "position" => "Secretary"), array("name" => "Amanda Miller", "position" => "Member"), array("name" => "James Brown", "position" => "Member"), array("name" => "Patricia Williams", "position" => "Member"), array("name" => "Michael Davis", "position" => "President"), array("name" => "Sarah Miller", "position" => "Vice-President"), array("name" => "Patrick Miller", "position" => "Member") );

$sortorder = array( 'President', 'Vice-President', 'Secretary', 'Member' );

function mySort($a, $b) {
global $sortorder; 
if($a['position'] == $b['position']) {  
	return 0;  
} 
$cmpa = array_search($a['position'], $sortorder); 
$cmpb = array_search($b['position'], $sortorder); 
return ($cmpa > $cmpb) ? 1 : -1; 
}

[genericnumber1]

http://us3.php.net/usort

 

That might be easier to understand.

 

$a is one value, $b is the next value (in this example, you can name them whatever) you return 0 if the values are even, or -1 or 1 depending on whether the value $a is lower than $b or higher.

[barkster]

Thanks, that's what I needed.  I was missing the unsort command.