How Can I Maintain Key Order While Sorting Associative Arrays in PHP Using uasort?

Maintaining Key Order in PHP Sorting with uasort

When sorting an associative array in PHP using the uasort function, it is possible to enforce a stable sort that preserves the original key order, even if multiple keys share the same value.

Solution

Since PHP no longer supports stable sorting by default, a custom function is required:

<code class="php">function mergesort(&$array, $cmp_function = 'strcmp') {
    // Base cases for arrays of size < 2
    if (count($array) < 2) return;
    // Split the array in half
    $halfway = count($array) / 2;
    $array1 = array_slice($array, 0, $halfway);
    $array2 = array_slice($array, $halfway);
    // Recursively sort the halves
    mergesort($array1, $cmp_function);
    mergesort($array2, $cmp_function);
    // Handle case if $array1 is entirely less than $array2
    if (call_user_func($cmp_function, end($array1), $array2[0]) < 1) {
        $array = array_merge($array1, $array2);
        return;
    }
    // Merge the two sorted arrays
    $array = array();
    $ptr1 = $ptr2 = 0;
    while ($ptr1 < count($array1) && $ptr2 < count($array2)) {
        if (call_user_func($cmp_function, $array1[$ptr1], $array2[$ptr2]) < 1) {
            $array[] = $array1[$ptr1++];
        } else {
            $array[] = $array2[$ptr2++];
        }
    }
    // Merge the remainder
    while ($ptr1 < count($array1)) $array[] = $array1[$ptr1++];
    while ($ptr2 < count($array2)) $array[] = $array2[$ptr2++];
    return;
}</code>

Usage

Simply use the mergesort function to sort your associative array, passing it as the first argument and an anonymous function for comparing values (optional):

<code class="php">uasort($arr, function($a, $b){
    return ($a == $b)?1:($a - $b);
});</code>

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