Re: Bug #765: new kusort() function (or similar)

Hi Zeev, hi all, Zeev Suraski wrote: > > On 22 Sep 1998 libs@cybercable.tm.fr wrote: > > > From: libs@cybercable.tm.fr > > Operating system: Linux (irrelevant) > > PHP version: 3.0.3 > > PHP Bug Type: Feature/Change Request > > Bug description: new kusort() function (or similar) > > > > I'd be delighted if a new function similar to ksort > > would appear in PHP3. > > > > 1/The requested functionality would be the following one: > > 1.1/Consider an array: > > $toto["001"]="a"; > > $toto["010"]="c"; > > $toto["100"]="d"; > > $toto["002"]="b"; > > $toto["110"]="e"; > > > > 1.2/Sorting this array on its key with the requested > > function would give: > > key : value > > 001 : a > > 002 : b > > 010 : c > > 100 : d > > 110 : e > > > > 1.3/Due to variable typing, ksort behaves differently > > and sorts this way: > > key : value > > 010 : c > > 100 : d > > 110 : e > > 001 : a > > 002 : b > > > > 1.4/There is no practical way of getting the requested > > functionality with the existing functions. > > But there is, exactly this: > > > Prepending zero or appending a dot work, of course, > > but it lacks elegance, especially when you have to strip > > the zero or the dot afterwards for use in the rest of > > the script. > > I'm not sure that adding specific functions for this fairly rare situation > is more elegant... My point is, I don't believe it is fairly rare. I may be biased because of what I intend to do. I explain what I do below so you can decide if it is a legit use of PHP or if I should totally redesign the script. It will have to be redesigned later with database use anyway when I have free time (yeah right). What I do is, I scan a directory for files which contain data about bugs. The name files are split to extract info about package, set and test. I put all data I need in an array where set and test are keys to values which come from inside the files. So my key is at the same time a test number and also a string, which I get from the filename and which I use later to construct other filenames. Then I can nicely separate collection of data and display of data. To display, I just ksort() on all levels of my multi-dimensional array and loop on the keys to format the data, reconstruct filenames to put in URL links, etc... The only glitch is, ksort does not really sort the keys in order. Yet I feel this is a fairly standard use of associative arrays. If the keys I use do not have any meaning to me (that is, if I have to append stuff to change the behaviour of ksort), I might as well use fully numerical keys and reformat them into the proper strings later on. It might even speed up the script. But it just defeats the purpose of associative arrays as I understand them. This is what I call inelegant: changing the data to suit the data manipulation functions and then changing it back. I hope I cleared up the issue, I just looked a bit in the code. From the comments in array_data_compare, I gather that kusort() is more likely than a variant of ksort() doing what I'd like. Jean-Marc Libs -- PHP Development Mailing List http://www.php.net/ To unsubscribe send an empty message to php-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For help: php-dev-help@lists.php.net