How to sort an array of associative arrays by value of a given key in PHP?

php arrays sorting multidimensional-array

Matt · Oct 21, 2009 · Viewed 493.8k times · Source

Given this array:

$inventory = array(

   array("type"=>"fruit", "price"=>3.50),
   array("type"=>"milk", "price"=>2.90),
   array("type"=>"pork", "price"=>5.43),

);

I would like to sort $inventory's elements by price to get:

$inventory = array(

   array("type"=>"pork", "price"=>5.43),
   array("type"=>"fruit", "price"=>3.50),
   array("type"=>"milk", "price"=>2.90),

);

How can I do this?

Answer

You are right, the function you're looking for is array_multisort().

Here's an example taken straight from the manual and adapted to your case:

$price = array();
foreach ($inventory as $key => $row)
{
    $price[$key] = $row['price'];
}
array_multisort($price, SORT_DESC, $inventory);

As of PHP 5.5.0 you can use array_column() instead of that foreach:

$price = array_column($inventory, 'price');

array_multisort($price, SORT_DESC, $inventory);