How do we sort arrays in PHP?

I wanted to write a series of articles about the solutions to the questions that I came across in my research about frequently asked questions in PHP Developer interviews and that I liked.

One of these questions was How do we sort arrays in PHP?. There are a number of functions that PHP has built-in to sort arrays in PHP. These are;

• sort() - Sorts arrays in ascending order.
• rsort() - Sorts arrays in descending order.
• asort() - Sorts the arrays in the array in ascending order by their value.
• ksort() - Sorts the arrays in the array ascending based on their key values.
• arsort() - Sorts the arrays in the array in descending order of their values.
• krsort() - Sorts the arrays in the array in descending order of key values.

can be sorted. Let's illustrate them with applications.

Sorting indexed arrays

Sorting Arrays in Ascending Order - sort()

It sorts the arrays in ascending order, for example;

$array = [1,52,69,9,32,13,45,102];

sort($array);
// Accordingly, when we print the array on the screen, we get an output as follows.

print_r($array);
// Output: Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 9 [2] => 13 [3] => 32 [4] => 45 [5] => 52 [6] => 69 [7 ] => 102)

Sorting Arrays in Arrays by Values

Sort Ascending - asort()

This function is used to sort other arrays in an array according to their values in ascending order. For example;

$arrayception = [
     'Cobb' => 34,
     'Arthur' => 25,
     'goods' => 2,
     'Eames' => 13,
     'Saito' => 8
];

asort($arrayception);

print_r($arrayception);
// When we print this array on the screen, it will output as follows;
// Output: Array ( [Mal] => 2 [Saito] => 8 [Eames] => 13 [Arthur] => 25 [Cobb] => 34 )

Sort Descending - arsort()

This function is used to sort other arrays in the array in descending order of their values. For example;

$arrayception = [
     'Cobb' => 34,
     'Arthur' => 25,
     'goods' => 2,
     'Eames' => 13,
     'Saito' => 8
];

arsort($arrayception);

print_r($arrayception);
// When we print this array on the screen, it will output as follows;
// Output: Array ( [Cobb] => 34 [Arthur] => 25 [Eames] => 13 [Saito] => 8 [Mal] => 2 )

Sorting Arrays in Array by Key Value

Ascending Sort - ksort()

This function is used to sort other arrays in ascending order according to their key values. For example;

$arrayception = [
     'Cobb' => 34,
     'Arthur' => 25,
     'goods' => 2,
     'Eames' => 13,
     'Saito' => 8
];

ksort($arrayception);

print_r($arrayception);
// When we print this array on the screen, it will output as follows;
// Output: Array ( [Arthur] => 25 [Cobb] => 34 [Eames] => 13 [Mal] => 2 [Saito] => 8 )

Descending Sort - krsort()

Finally, the krsort() function is used to sort other arrays in descending order of their key values. For example;

$arrayception = [
     'Cobb' => 34,
     'Arthur' => 25,
     'goods' => 2,
     'Eames' => 13,
     'Saito' => 8
];

krsort($arrayception);

print_r($arrayception);
// When we print this array on the screen, it will output as follows;
// Output: Array ( [Saito] => 8 [Mal] => 2 [Eames] => 13 [Cobb] => 34 [Arthur] => 25 )