asked on

PHP sort names by last and first names

The code I have explodes the names into alphabetical order but I need to get it in alphabetical order by last name... note the Mr.

Any help would be appreciated.

<?PHP
$harry_potter_characters = "Bathsheda Babbling, Malcolm Baddock, Mr Bagman, Ludovic Bagman, " .
                                   "Otto Bagman, Millicent Bagnold, Bathilda Bagshot, Heathcote, Barbary, " .
                                   "Musidora Barkwith, Baruffio, Ali Bashir, Hetty Bayliss, Oswald Beamish, " .
                                   "Herbert Beery, Flavius Belby, Marcus Belby, Humphrey Belcher, Katie Bell";
 
class potter_character
{
   var $first_name;
   var $last_name;
}
 
$potter_characters=explode(", " , $harry_potter_characters);
usort($potter_characters, "strcasecmp");
var_dump($potter_characters)
?>

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Roger Baklund

Try this:

usort($potter_characters, create_function('$a,$b',
  '$tmpa=explode(" ",$a);
   $tmpb=explode(" ",$b);
   return strcasecmp(
     array_pop($tmpa),
     array_pop($tmpb));'));

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scottkern3

ASKER

This is the output I get from that...
I was thinking the output should be:

Babbling, Bathsheda
Baddock, Malcolm....
...followed by first name only characters

hopefully that makes sense.

0 => string 'Bathsheda Babbling' (length=18)
  1 => string 'Malcolm Baddock' (length=15)
  2 => string 'Otto Bagman' (length=11)
  3 => string 'Ludovic Bagman' (length=14)
  4 => string 'Mr Bagman' (length=9)
  5 => string 'Millicent Bagnold' (length=17)
  6 => string 'Bathilda Bagshot' (length=16)
  7 => string 'Barbary' (length=7)
  8 => string 'Musidora Barkwith' (length=17)
  9 => string 'Baruffio' (length=8)
  10 => string 'Ali Bashir' (length=10)
  11 => string 'Hetty Bayliss' (length=13)
  12 => string 'Oswald Beamish' (length=14)
  13 => string 'Herbert Beery' (length=13)
  14 => string 'Marcus Belby' (length=12)
  15 => string 'Flavius Belby' (length=13)
  16 => string 'Humphrey Belcher' (length=16)
  17 => string 'Katie Bell' (length=10)
  18 => string 'Heathcote' (length=9)

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Roger Baklund

Is this what you want:

foreach($potter_characters as $name) {
  $nameparts = explode(' ',$name);
  echo array_pop($nameparts);
  if($nameparts)
    echo ', '.implode(' ',$nameparts);
  echo '<br />';
}

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scottkern3

ASKER

Nice! Now the only thing is the first names onlys at the end of the list.

Is that even possible?

Roger Baklund

Sure, just modify the sorting function. If there are multiple names, sort before those with a single name:

usort($potter_characters, 
  create_function('$a,$b',
  '$tmpa=explode(" ",$a);
   $tmpb=explode(" ",$b);
   $lasta=array_pop($tmpa);
   $lastb=array_pop($tmpb);
   return strcasecmp(
     (count($tmpa)?"1":"2").$lasta,
     (count($tmpb)?"1":"2").$lastb);'));

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scottkern3

ASKER

Your code before this last one had the output with last name, first name... <--- I liked this
this put it back to full name with last name alphabetical like in this (what I pasted in code snippet)

Is there a way I could do it with the "for_each" example above?

0 => string 'Bathsheda Babbling' (length=18)
  1 => string 'Malcolm Baddock' (length=15)
  2 => string 'Otto Bagman' (length=11)
  3 => string 'Ludovic Bagman' (length=14)
  4 => string 'Mr Bagman' (length=9)
  5 => string 'Millicent Bagnold' (length=17)
  6 => string 'Bathilda Bagshot' (length=16)
  7 => string 'Musidora Barkwith' (length=17)
  8 => string 'Ali Bashir' (length=10)
  9 => string 'Hetty Bayliss' (length=13)
  10 => string 'Oswald Beamish' (length=14)
  11 => string 'Herbert Beery' (length=13)
  12 => string 'Marcus Belby' (length=12)
  13 => string 'Flavius Belby' (length=13)
  14 => string 'Humphrey Belcher' (length=16)
  15 => string 'Katie Bell' (length=10)
  16 => string 'Barbary' (length=7)
  17 => string 'Baruffio' (length=8)
  18 => string 'Heathcote' (length=9)

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Roger Baklund

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scottkern3

ASKER

That makes a little more sense.

Thank you so much!