ordering a php array by sorting one of its values

I have an array of items that i want to sort by how many likes each item has with the highest first.

I tried to order the likes for each item, but in the way that i went about it, there was no more association to the original item.

Here is what i did:

$max = $feed->get_item_quantity(); //max number of items in the array
$orderedLike;
for($i = 0; $i < $max; $i++ )
{
    $item[$i] = $feed->get_item($i); //gets single items
    $orderedLike[$i] = $item[$i]->get_like_count(); //gets number of likes for each item
}
arsort($orderedLike); //sorts the number of likes
echo '<pre>';
    foreach ( $orderedLike as $like )
    {
        echo $like . ' '; //displays the likes
    }
echo '</pre>';

This works but then i realized that i cant sort the original array of items anymore because there are two arrays. O开发者_运维百科ne with numbers of likes and one with items and values(including the number of likes).

The array im ultimately trying to get into order via the like value is $item

Im not quite sure how to do this.

You can use usort for this:

usort($item, 'cmp_by_likes');

function cmp_by_likes($a, $b){
    return $b->get_like_count()-$a->get_like_count();
}

You're actually not far off. You can use foreach( $arr as $key => $val ) to do that:

foreach ( $orderedLike as $key => $val )
{
    echo $item[$key]. ' '; //displays the likes
}

But maybe you're better off with usort:

// I never say this initialized.
$item = array();
// create only one array
for($i = 0; $i < $max; $i++ )
{
    // let PHP handle indexing.
    $item[] = $feed->get_item($i); //gets single items
}    
usort( $item, 'sort_by_like_count' );
// item is now sorted by get_like_count

function sort_by_like_count( $a, $b )
{
    $a = $a->get_like_count();
    $b = $b->get_like_count();
    // you can do return $a - $b here as a shortcut. I prefer being explicit as
    // 1, 0, -1 is expected more universally.
    if( $a == $b ) return 0;
    return ( $a > $b )? 1: -1;
}