Sort array by date in descending order by date in php

Question

I have an array and I want to sort it by date. I am not able to sort it properly by date in descending order. Please help.

Array
(
[1] => Array
    (
        [1] => 11/05/2013
        [2] => Executive Planning Day
    )

[2] => Array
    (
        [1] => 13/06/2013
        [2] => Middle Leaders Planning Day
    )

[3] => Array
    (
        [1] => 12/07/2013
        [2] => New Staff Induction Day
    )

[4] => Array
    (
        [1] => 13/04/2013
        [2] => Staff Conference Day No. 1
    )

[5] => Array
    (
        [1] => 14/04/2013
        [2] => Staff Conference Day No. 2
    )

[6] => Array
    (
        [1] => 15/02/2013
        [2] => Staff Conference Day No. 3
    )

[7] => Array
    (
        [1] => 16/03/2013
        [2] => Australia Day
    )
)

Maby have a look at this thread: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/96759/how-do-i-sort-a-multidimensional-array-in-php — Eernie, May 24 '13 at 11:03

GautamD31 · Answer 1 · 2013-05-24T11:42:14.133

22

Try like this

function sortFunction( $a, $b ) {
    return strtotime($a[1]) - strtotime($b[1]);
}
usort($data, "sortFunction");   //Here You can use asort($data,"sortFunction")

or you may try by detail like(its just suggestion)

function sortFunction($a,$b)
    if ($a[1] == $b[1]) return 0;
    return strtotime($a[1]) - strtotime($b[1]);
}
usort($data,"sortFunction");

As the strtotime is not obey d/m/Y format try like this

$orderByDate = $my2 = array();
foreach($data as $key=>$row)
{
    $my2 = explode('/',$row[1]);
    $my_date2 = $my2[1].'/'.$my2[0].'/'.$my2[2];        
    $orderByDate[$key] = strtotime($my_date2);  
}    
array_multisort($orderByDate, SORT_DESC, $data);

edited May 24 '13 at 11:42

answered May 24 '13 at 10:43

GautamD31

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"date"-index does not exist – bestprogrammerintheworld May 24 '13 at 10:45
I like this answer. @bestprogrammerintheworld that's because in the OP's array the date is indexed as '1', not as 'date'. Adjust accordingly. – Maxim Kumpan May 24 '13 at 10:47
@Gautam3164 - It's ok, it was just to clarify :-) – bestprogrammerintheworld May 24 '13 at 10:48
@mkumpan - I know and Gautam has changed it accordingly :-) I like the answer to. – bestprogrammerintheworld May 24 '13 at 10:49
i try this but not getting data in descending format. Date ordering still not correct :(. – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 10:52
getting incorrect data after using your suggestions : Array ( [0] => Array ( [1] => 11/05/2013 [2] => Middle Leaders ) [1] => Array ( [1] => 10/05/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day ) [3] => Array ( [1] => 25/06/2013 [2] => New Staff Induction Day ) [4] => Array ( [1] => 27/06/2013 [2] => Year 8-12 commence ) [6] => Array ( [1] => 23/06/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day )} – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:26
Yup it is working for me but data sorting is in ascending order. I want it in descending order. like higher date should be on top of array then lower and lower. – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:47
See the third one,it will related to you bec your time is in d/m/Y formate – GautamD31 May 24 '13 at 11:53
@neerajsharma now check is it working or not...consider third ans of mine – GautamD31 May 24 '13 at 12:00
1

I was testing with that. It is working for me now.; thanks :) – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 12:56

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 03 '17 at 16:58

I spent a night working on how to do this for my own similar issue. To sort an associative array by date of a key in that array.

Both usort and uasort require a sort function that you must write and pass as the second parameter. The sort function is used by usort and uasort to compare each item in the array and store the result as $yourArray

 function sortFunction( $a, $b ) {
           return strtotime($a[1]) - strtotime($b[1]);
 }

 uasort($yourArray, "sortFunction");

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered May 24 '13 at 10:46

2

Use usort(Sort an array by values using a user-defined comparison function).

usort($array, function($a1, $a2) {
   $value1 = strtotime($a1['date']);
   $value2 = strtotime($a2['date']);
   return $value1 - $value2;
});

answered May 24 '13 at 10:46

Vivek Sadh

4,230
3
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getting incorrect data after using your suggestions : Array ( [0] => Array ( [1] => 11/05/2013 [2] => Middle Leaders ) [1] => Array ( [1] => 10/05/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day ) [3] => Array ( [1] => 25/06/2013 [2] => New Staff Induction Day ) [4] => Array ( [1] => 27/06/2013 [2] => Year 8-12 commence ) [6] => Array ( [1] => 23/06/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day )} – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:18
I have tried all the suggestions but data is not coming in properly descending order. – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:19

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 24 '13 at 10:46

2

Use usort() function:

function cmp($a, $b) {
    if ($a[1] == $b[1]) return 0;
    return (strtotime($a[1]) < strtotime($b[1])) ? 1 : -1;
}

usort($data, "cmp");

answered May 24 '13 at 10:46

Vedran Šego

3,553
3
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getting incorrect data after using your suggestions : Array ( [0] => Array ( [1] => 11/05/2013 [2] => Middle Leaders ) [1] => Array ( [1] => 10/05/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day ) [3] => Array ( [1] => 25/06/2013 [2] => New Staff Induction Day ) [4] => Array ( [1] => 27/06/2013 [2] => Year 8-12 commence ) [6] => Array ( [1] => 23/06/2013 [2] => Executive Planning Day )} – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:25
@neerajsharma Your dates are not in [proper format](http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.date.php). You can replace that by a `preg_match()`. However, it might be more time-efficient to go once through `$data` and add a timestamp to each item before sortin, so that this conversion is done only once per item. – Vedran Šego May 24 '13 at 12:42

Emissary · Answer 5 · 2013-12-31T00:54:33.850

Not entirely happy with all of the answers here so I thought I'd mention that if you wish to sort an associative array preserving the keys then you should use uasort rather than usort. You can also parse the date from any format you like with the DateTime library which also includes some predefined constants for some of the standard formats.

uasort($array, function($a, $b){ 
    $format = 'd/m/Y'; 
    $ascending = false;
    $zone = new DateTimeZone('UTC');
    $d1 = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, $a[1], $zone)->getTimestamp();
    $d2 = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, $b[1], $zone)->getTimestamp();
    return $ascending ? ($d1 - $d2) : ($d2 - $d1);
});

demo

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 29 '17 at 14:23

I jumped here for associative array sorting and found this amazing function on http://php.net/manual/en/function.sort.php. This function is very dynamic that sort in ascending and descending order with specified key.

Simple function to sort an array by a specific key. Maintains index association.

<?php

function array_sort($array, $on, $order=SORT_ASC)
{
    $new_array = array();
    $sortable_array = array();

    if (count($array) > 0) {
        foreach ($array as $k => $v) {
            if (is_array($v)) {
                foreach ($v as $k2 => $v2) {
                    if ($k2 == $on) {
                        $sortable_array[$k] = $v2;
                    }
                }
            } else {
                $sortable_array[$k] = $v;
            }
        }

        switch ($order) {
            case SORT_ASC:
                asort($sortable_array);
            break;
            case SORT_DESC:
                arsort($sortable_array);
            break;
        }

        foreach ($sortable_array as $k => $v) {
            $new_array[$k] = $array[$k];
        }
    }

    return $new_array;
}

$people = array(
    12345 => array(
        'id' => 12345,
        'first_name' => 'Joe',
        'surname' => 'Bloggs',
        'age' => 23,
        'sex' => 'm'
    ),
    12346 => array(
        'id' => 12346,
        'first_name' => 'Adam',
        'surname' => 'Smith',
        'age' => 18,
        'sex' => 'm'
    ),
    12347 => array(
        'id' => 12347,
        'first_name' => 'Amy',
        'surname' => 'Jones',
        'age' => 21,
        'sex' => 'f'
    )
);

print_r(array_sort($people, 'age', SORT_DESC)); // Sort by oldest first
print_r(array_sort($people, 'surname', SORT_ASC)); // Sort by surname

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered May 24 '13 at 10:44

1

I'd build an array for ordering.

$ordered = array();
foreach ($planning as $event) {
  $ordered[$event['date']] = $event;
}
ksort($ordered);

answered May 24 '13 at 10:44

Ven

19,015
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This is going to come down around your ears if the array contains a few hundred thousand entries. – Maxim Kumpan May 24 '13 at 10:46
2

Or if two fields have the same date. – Vedran Šego May 24 '13 at 10:48
mkumpan: because hydrating few hundred thousand entries considering the structure he has will be much more performant, right? – Ven May 24 '13 at 11:19
My array doesn't have the date index name then how it will work ??. I am not getting correct data. – Neeraj Sharma May 24 '13 at 11:41
use `$event[1]` in this case – Ven May 24 '13 at 11:45

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 10 '20 at 16:51

so do it like this:

//your array


$arr = array();
array_push($arr, array("11/05/2013", "Executive Planning Day"));
array_push($arr, array("13/06/2013", "Middle Leaders Planning Day"));
array_push($arr, array("12/07/2013", "New Staff Induction Day"));
array_push($arr, array("13/04/2013", "Staff Conference Day No. 1"));
array_push($arr, array("14/04/2013", "Staff Conference Day No. 2"));
array_push($arr, array("15/02/2013", "Staff Conference Day No. 3"));
array_push($arr, array("16/03/2013", "Australia Day"));


var_dump($arr);

function sortDateDesc($a, $b){  
    $strA = implode("-", array_reverse( explode("/", $a[0]) ) ); 
    $strB = implode("-", array_reverse( explode("/", $b[0]) ) ); 

    return strtotime($strB) - strtotime($strA);
}



usort($arr, "sortDateDesc");

var_dump($arr);

If your date format is constant day/month/year then you need to pass it in a string format recognized by the parser and year-month-day is an ISO standard if I remember it well, that one works fine

Sébastien Gicquel · Answer 9 · 2023-03-03T07:59:30.527

Here is a working example with the spaceship operator <=>

    $array = Array(
        Array(
            "id" => "1",
            "date_time_rdv" => "2018-02-22 11:29:35",
        ),
        Array(
            "id" => "2",
            "date_time_rdv" => "2020-02-13 10:05:25",
        ),
        Array(
            "id" => "3",
            "date_time_rdv" => "2019-02-15 22:18:45",
        )
    );

    function date_compare($a, $b) {
        $format = 'Y-m-d H:i:s';
        $d1 = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, $a['date_time_rdv']);
        $d2 = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, $b['date_time_rdv']);
        return $d2 <=> $d1;
    }

    usort($array, 'date_compare');

It will output :

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [date_time_rdv] => 2020-02-13 10:05:25
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 3
            [date_time_rdv] => 2019-02-15 22:18:45
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1
            [date_time_rdv] => 2018-02-22 11:29:35
        )

)

If you use uasort() instead, it will output this (it will maintain index association)

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [id] => 2
            [date_time_rdv] => 2020-02-13 10:05:25
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [id] => 3
            [date_time_rdv] => 2019-02-15 22:18:45
        )

    [0] => Array
        (
            [id] => 1
            [date_time_rdv] => 2018-02-22 11:29:35
        )

)

If you try return $d1 <=> $d2;, it will reverse the order.

In date_compare(), we use DateTime::createFromFormat which parses a time string according to a specified format. You could use the format you need, like in the op question dd/mm/YYYY

More info on DateTime::createFromFormat :

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 15 '15 at 11:09

The solution of @Gautam3164 is almost perfect. You need to change the format of the dates. I'd say:

function sortFunction( $a, $b ) {
    return strtotime(str_replace('/', '-',$a[1])) - strtotime(str_replace('/', '-',$b[1]));
}
usort($data, "sortFunction");   //Here You can use asort($data,"sortFunction")

11/10/1987 -> 10 Nov 1987 11-10-1987 -> 11 Oct 1987

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 06 '15 at 02:30

0

$sortdate = array(
    '17/08/2015',
    '02/01/2017',
    '05/02/2014'
);

function sortFunction($a, $b)
    {
    $datea = strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $a));
    $dateb = strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $b));
    if ($datea == $dateb)
        {
        return 0;
        }

    return ($datea < $dateb) ? -1 : 1;
    }

usort($sortdate, "sortFunction");
echo "<pre>";
var_dump($sortdate);

answered Jul 06 '15 at 02:30

Masud Ahmed

1

A little explanation of what you've done would be helpful. – empiric Jul 06 '15 at 06:34

Sort array by date in descending order by date in php

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