PHP - Multiple uasort functions breaks sorting

Update

I recently answered this question in a much more capable manner in the "definitive" topic on sorting multidimensional arrays. You can safely skip reading the rest of this answer and directly follow the link for a much more capable solution.

Original answer

The function uasort lets you define your own comparison function. Simply put all the criteria you want inside that.

For example, to sort by birthday and then by name:

function comparer($first, $second) {
    // First see if birthdays differ
    if ($first['birthday'] < $second['birthday']) {
        return -1;
    }
    else if ($first['birthday'] > $second['birthday']) {
        return 1;
    }

    // OK, birthdays are equal. What else?
    if ($first['name'] < $second['name']) {
        return -1;
    }
    else if ($first['name'] > $second['name']) {
        return 1;
    }

    // No more sort criteria. The two elements are equal.
    return 0;
}

I am ignoring the fact that in your example, the birthdays are not in a format that can be ordered by a simple comparison using the operator <. In practice you would convert them to a trivially-comparable format first.

Update: if you think that maintaining a bunch of these multiple-criteria comparers could get ugly real fast, you find me in agreement. But this problem can be solved as any other in computer science: just add another level of abstraction.

I 'll be assuming PHP 5.3 for the next example, in order to use the convenient anon function syntax. But in principle, you could do the same with create_function.

function make_comparer() {
    $criteriaNames = func_get_args();
    $comparer = function($first, $second) use ($criteriaNames) {
        // Do we have anything to compare?
        while(!empty($criteriaNames)) {
            // What will we compare now?
            $criterion = array_shift($criteriaNames);

            // Do the actual comparison
            if ($first[$criterion] < $second[$criterion]) {
                return -1;
            }
            else if ($first[$criterion] > $second[$criterion]) {
                return 1;
            }

        }

        // Nothing more to compare with, so $first == $second
        return 0;
    };

    return $comparer;
}

You could then do:

uasort($myArray, make_comparer('birthday', 'name'));

This example possibly tries to be too clever; in general I don't like to use functions that do not accept their arguments by name. But in this case, the usage scenario is a very strong argument for being too clever.

Since PHP does not support stable sort after PHP 4.1.0, you need to write your own function.

This seems to do what you're asking: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php#38827

As the manual says, "If two members compare as equal, their order in the sorted array is undefined." This means that the sort used is not "stable" and may change the order of elements that compare equal.

Sometimes you really do need a stable sort. For example, if you sort a list by one field, then sort it again by another field, but don't want to lose the ordering from the previous field. In that case it is better to use usort with a comparison function that takes both fields into account, but if you can't do that then use the function below. It is a merge sort, which is guaranteed O(n*log(n)) complexity, which means it stays reasonably fast even when you use larger lists (unlike bubblesort and insertion sort, which are O(n^2)).

<?php
function mergesort(&$array, $cmp_function = 'strcmp') {
    // Arrays of size < 2 require no action.
    if (count($array) < 2) return;
    // Split the array in half
    $halfway = count($array) / 2;
    $array1 = array_slice($array, 0, $halfway);
    $array2 = array_slice($array, $halfway);
    // Recurse to sort the two halves
    mergesort($array1, $cmp_function);
    mergesort($array2, $cmp_function);
    // If all of $array1 is <= all of $array2, just append them.
    if (call_user_func($cmp_function, end($array1), $array2[0]) < 1) {
        $array = array_merge($array1, $array2);
        return;
    }
    // Merge the two sorted arrays into a single sorted array
    $array = array();
    $ptr1 = $ptr2 = 0;
    while ($ptr1 < count($array1) && $ptr2 < count($array2)) {
        if (call_user_func($cmp_function, $array1[$ptr1], $array2[$ptr2]) < 1) {
            $array[] = $array1[$ptr1++];
        }
        else {
            $array[] = $array2[$ptr2++];
        }
    }
    // Merge the remainder
    while ($ptr1 < count($array1)) $array[] = $array1[$ptr1++];
    while ($ptr2 < count($array2)) $array[] = $array2[$ptr2++];
    return;
}
?>

Also, you may find this forum thread interesting.

You can do it like this, do the calculation from the innermost of the array. Check the demo.

<?php
function f(&$array)
{
    foreach($array as $k => &$v)
    {
        if(is_array($v))
        {
            if(count($v) == count($v, 1))
            {
                unset($array[$k]);
                if($k == 'sum')
                {
                    $v =  array_sum($v);
                    $array[] = $v;

                }elseif($k == 'multiply'){
                    $v = array_product($v);
                    $array[] = $v;
                }else{

                    foreach($v as $vv)
                        $array[] = $vv;
                }
            }else
                f($v);
        }
    }
}

while(count($array) != count($array, 1))
{
    f($array);
}

print_r($array);

Note：

traverse array from outer to inner
traverse array from inner to outer