natsort

Description

This function implements a sort algorithm that orders alphanumeric strings in the way a human being would while maintaining key/value associations. This is described as a "natural ordering". An example of the difference between this algorithm and the regular computer string sorting algorithms (used in sort()) can be seen below:

Example 1. natsort() example <?php $array1 = $array2 = array("img12.png", "img10.png", "img2.png", "img1.png"); sort($array1); echo "Standard sorting\n"; print_r($array1); natsort($array2); echo "\nNatural order sorting\n"; print_r($array2); ?> The code above will generate the following output: Standard sorting Array ( [0] => img1.png [1] => img10.png [2] => img12.png [3] => img2.png ) Natural order sorting Array ( [3] => img1.png [2] => img2.png [1] => img10.png [0] => img12.png ) For more information see: Martin Pool's Natural Order String Comparison page.

See also natcasesort(), strnatcmp(), and strnatcasecmp().