PHP sorting script

Question

This may be a bit much to ask here, but what I want are some simple directions or examples of a PHP sorting script, so that I can work it out myself.

I have a webshop where I want my customers to sort their products, bases on some variables such as the price, or color of the product.

I'm building a menu on the left of my site with checkboxes where people can check the variable they want to sort with. When they check a box, the page container must refresh and only the products that match the requirements must be visible. See http://amzn.to/ryeIjF for an example of what I want to achieve.

Note that all the properties of my products are stored in a mysql database.

look at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/777597/sorting-an-associative-array-in-php — macjohn, Dec 21 '11 at 18:49

Dutchie432 · Answer 1 · 2011-12-21T18:50:49.453

Sorting multi-dimensional arrays in PHP is actually not too difficult... I assume that's what you're looking to do (sort by price, popularity, most recent, etc..).

Assume the following structure for a multi-dimensional array $itemsArray

{[
    {
      "id" : "2643",
      "name" : "Leather Jacket",
      "price" : "249.99"
    },
    {
      "id" : "2645",
      "name" : "Suede Jacket",
      "price" : "289.99"
    },
    ...
]}

This can be sorted like...

usort($itemsArray, 'sortItemsByPrice');

function sortItemsByPrice($objA, $objB) {
    //This function returns a -1, 0, or 1 depending on the order  
    //of object A and Object B

    $aVal=$objA['price'];
    $bVal=$objB['price'];
    if ($a == $b) {  
        //or maybe sort on a secondary field
        return 0;    
    }
    return ($a < $b) ? 1 : -1;      
}

HOWEVER

If you can sort directly in SQL, do so using the ORDER BY keywords in your SQL statement

//Order by price, lowest->highest
SELECT id,name,price FROM products ORDER BY price

//Order by price, highest->lowest
SELECT id,name,price FROM products ORDER BY price desc

This is indeed kind of what I'm looking for. Within a few hours I will try to implement this on our site, and see how to make the checkboxes call the function :) — Forza, Dec 21 '11 at 19:15
I have to re-state this. For the type of functionality you are looking to perform, it is probably best to do the sorting on the SQL side. It will yield MUCH faster results. — Dutchie432, Dec 22 '11 at 10:11

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:48

If your data is stored in MySQL database you can simply sort them when you are querying database. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/order-by-optimization.html http://php.net/manual/en/function.sort.php I think that better is to, if is possible, deal with data at their source.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:46

1

PHP shouldn't be doing the sorting for you. YOu can just make a request to your php script build a SQL query dynamically filter the values selected and have your db do the sorting for you! this is what it is made and optimized to do!!!

answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:46

dm03514

50,477
16
96
131

I won't down vote, because in most cases this is true. But, in high traffic sites it is often a requirement that application logic is used for this exact type of thing in order to offload traffic from the database. – sberry Dec 21 '11 at 19:10

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:43

0

Take a look at: http://php.net/manual/en/array.sorting.php

answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:43

Jeremy

2,325
6
23
23

Bhavik Patel · Answer 5 · 2011-12-21T18:51:59.847

0

Use Order By clause in SQL query like this ORDER BY products or you can sort later by first retrieving result set in array using mysql_fetch_array($result) method

edited Dec 21 '11 at 18:51

answered Dec 21 '11 at 18:48

Bhavik Patel

25
1
5

PHP sorting script

5 Answers5