How to convert a string to array in php?

Question

This is not the explode can solve

I have several array

$order
data: {5,3,2}
$title,
data: {USA, England, China}
$attribute
Same idea 
$type
Same idea 

The $order has already exist some value
{5,3,2} and for each has its $title,$attribute,$type value correspondingly

eg. 5 USA att5 type5

I would like to sort the order to {2,3,5} and the corresponding data in other array will be sorted too.

eg. {2,3,5}

For the array $title afterwards

is

{China, England,USA}

How to implement this for all arrays? Thank you

My idea is using an associative array , and i can sort the key, and everything is done. However, I can not generate the array

My idea array:

$records = array(5 => array("title" => "USA", "att" => "add5"),
 3 => array("title" => "England", "att" => "add3"),
 2 => array("title" => "China", "att" => "add2"));

Answer 1

<?php
$order = array(5, 3, 2); // or $order = array("5", "3", "2");
$title = array("USA", "England", "China");
$att = array("Att 1", "Att 2", "Att 3");
$type = array("Type 1", "Type 2", "Type 3");
$records = array();
foreach ($order as $i => $o) 
 $records[$o] = array("title" => $title[$i], "att" => $att[$i], "type" => $type[$i]);
ksort($records, SORT_NUMERIC);
print_r($records);
?>

Answer 2

After these lines on your script

$string = substr($string, 0, -1);
$records="array (".$string.");";

You can add

eval("\$records = $records;");

You can read about the eval function at http://php.net/manual/es/function.eval.php and why you should be really careful when using it

• poncha: first of all, it looks like this will not work with the input OP shown. secondly, when in doubt - do not use eval
• Stefan: "looks like" => enough to vote down? And if eval is a practical solution, why not point it out? Especially if a warning accompanies it's use...as it does.
• poncha: @Stefan: if you look at the input (above), you might see what i mean by "looks like"
• poncha: @Stefan and regarding eval being practical, please, reconsider... can you be sure what outcome will it do when input (even slightly) changes?
• Stefan: @poncha: "looks like" means "looks like" in my dictionary - it doesn't mean "confirmed wrong". And with "practical" I mean "working in a specific case", and if it works in this case, why not point it out? That said, I wouldn't do it myself and furthermore it "looks like" the quotes and double quotes in the string will raise a parse error (unconfirmed though).

Answer 3

where one explode is not enough, two explodes can help ;)

$records = Array();
foreach(explode("\n", trim($string)) as $line)
{
 list($order,$title,$attribute,$type) = explode(",", $line);
 $records[$order] = Array("title" => $title, "attribute" => $attribute, "type" => $type);
}
ksort($records);

• poncha: that's assuming the input is the string like you shown - a lot of lines in format $order,$title,$attribute,$type. if not, then consider a different approach.
• poncha: now that your intentions are clear, please, look at @Tarik's answer about multisort.
• user782104: Thanks, but it seems i need not using this if i have created an array

Answer 4

things are now more clear for this i recommend using array_multisort http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-multisort.php

• user782104: My idea was using assositive array, wouldn't it easier to implement, all i need is ksort, but the problem is I still can not generate the array .
• Tarik: :) yes, and You will get the same output from the code in the link

Answer 5

instead of converting from a string to array you can build it

$result = array();
$countItem=0;
foreach ($order as $itemID)
{
 $result [$countItem] = array('id' => $itemID, 'title' => $title[$countItem], 'attribute' => $att[$countItem],'type'=>$type[$countItem]);
 $countItem++;
}

and then sort it by id

• poncha: one comment: single quotes will not work here. you will get a lot of lines with literal values like $title[$countItem]...
• Tarik: You will have an array $order which you can return
• Tarik: what did it return? and did you initialize the $countItem
• user782104: sure , and i tried type in the countItem manually, it return Array ( [0] => Array ( 'title' =>'title1', 'attribute' => 'att1' 'type' => 'txt' ) ) but it different from what i need.
• Tarik: It would be appreciated if you clear up what is the purpose of this code so we can understand and help better