Sorting Objects By ...members?

[Guest FirefoxRocks]

Suppose I have an object like this:

SimpleXMLElement Object(	[lastUpdate] => 2009-02-26	[team] => Array		(			[0] => SimpleXMLElement Object				 (					[name] => Team A					[points] => 13				 )			[1] => SimpleXMLElement Object				 (					[name] => Team B					[points] => 22				 )			[2] => SimpleXMLElement Object				 (					[name] => Team C					[points] => 9				 )		))

I want to sort the teams by points, how do I do that? If I convert the objects to arrays, and even if I did, which function would I use to sort the array?

[Synook]

If you convert it to an array, you can use array_multisort().

[Guest FirefoxRocks]

What is the argument that I need to use in array_multisort()? Currently I have implemented a JavaScript(jQuery) solution but this isn't the best way to solve the problem.

[justsomeguy]

You probably want to use usort. You define a custom comparison function to compare the fields you want and say which goes first. Examples here:http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.usort.php

[Guest FirefoxRocks]

What should the custom function look like for me if I need to sort by POINTS and MEMBERS both in descending order? In the first example on the usort page, where does the $b variable come out of?

[justsomeguy]

$a and $b are just two arbitrary elements in the list to sort, your function needs to decide which gets sorted first. So you would compare $a->points with $b->points, if they're both the same compare the members property. Return a positive value if $b should go before $a, a negative value if $a should go before $b, and 0 if they're equal.