natsort

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

natsortSort an array using a "natural order" algorithm

Description

natsort(array &$array): true

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 in the example below.

Note:

If two members compare as equal, they retain their original order. Prior to PHP 8.0.0, their relative order in the sorted array was undefined.

Note:

Resets array's internal pointer to the first element.

Parameters

array

The input array.

Return Values

Always returns true.

Changelog

Version Description
8.2.0 The return type is true now; previously, it was bool.

Examples

Example #1 natsort() examples demonstrating basic usage

<?php
$array1
= $array2 = array("img12.png", "img10.png", "img2.png", "img1.png");

asort($array1);
echo
"Standard sorting\n";
print_r($array1);

natsort($array2);
echo
"\nNatural order sorting\n";
print_r($array2);
?>

The above example will output:

Standard sorting
Array
(
    [3] => img1.png
    [1] => img10.png
    [0] => img12.png
    [2] => 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.

Example #2 natsort() examples demonstrating potential gotchas

<?php
echo "Negative numbers\n";
$negative = array('-5','3','-2','0','-1000','9','1');
print_r($negative);
natsort($negative);
print_r($negative);

echo
"Zero padding\n";
$zeros = array('09', '8', '10', '009', '011', '0');
print_r($zeros);
natsort($zeros);
print_r($zeros);
?>

The above example will output:

Negative numbers
Array
(
    [0] => -5
    [1] => 3
    [2] => -2
    [3] => 0
    [4] => -1000
    [5] => 9
    [6] => 1
)
Array
(
    [2] => -2
    [0] => -5
    [4] => -1000
    [3] => 0
    [6] => 1
    [1] => 3
    [5] => 9
)

Zero padding
Array
(
    [0] => 09
    [1] => 8
    [2] => 10
    [3] => 009
    [4] => 011
    [5] => 0
)
Array
(
    [5] => 0
    [1] => 8
    [3] => 009
    [0] => 09
    [2] => 10
    [4] => 011
)

See Also

add a note

User Contributed Notes 19 notes

up
38
wyvern at greywyvern dot com
15 years ago
There's no need to include your own API code to natsort an associative array by key. PHP's in-built functions (other than natsort) can do the job just fine:

<?php
uksort
($myArray, "strnatcmp");
?>
up
10
flash at minet dot net
20 years ago
About the reverse natsort.. Maybe simpler to do :

function strrnatcmp ($a, $b) {
return strnatcmp ($b, $a);
}
up
13
Johan GENNESSON (php at genjo dot fr)
13 years ago
Be careful of the new behaviour in 5.2.10 version.
See the following sample:

<?php

$array
= array('1 bis', '10 ter', '0 PHP', '0', '01', '01 Ver', '0 ', '1 ', '1');

natsort($array);
echo
'<pre>';
print_r($array);
echo
'</pre>';
?>

5.2.6-1 will output:
Array
(
[3] => 0
[6] => 0
[2] => 0 OP
[4] => 01
[5] => 01 Ver
[8] => 1
[7] => 1
[0] => 1 bis
[1] => 10 ter
)

5.2.10 will output:
Array
(
[6] => 0
[3] => 0
[8] => 1
[4] => 01
[7] => 1
[5] => 01 Ver
[0] => 1 bis
[1] => 10 ter
[2] => 0 OP
)

Greetings
up
4
mbirth at webwriters dot de
20 years ago
For those who want to natsort a 2d-array on the first element of each sub-array, the following few lines should do the job.

<?php

function natsort2d(&$aryInput) {
$aryTemp = $aryOut = array();
foreach (
$aryInput as $key=>$value) {
reset($value);
$aryTemp[$key]=current($value);
}
natsort($aryTemp);
foreach (
$aryTemp as $key=>$value) {
$aryOut[] = $aryInput[$key];
}
$aryInput = $aryOut;
}

?>
up
4
anonymous at coward dot net
21 years ago
Reverse Natsort:

function rnatsort($a, $b) {
return -1 * strnatcmp($a, $b);
}

usort($arr, "rnatsort");
up
8
xlab AT adaptiveNOSPAMarts DOT net
20 years ago
Under limited testing, natsort() appears to work well for IP addresses. For my needs, it is far less code than the ip2long()/long2ip() conversion I was using before.
up
5
rasmus at flajm dot com
20 years ago
To make a reverse function, you can simply:

function rnatsort(&$a){
natsort($a);
$a = array_reverse($a, true);
}
up
3
natcasesort.too
18 years ago
I got caught out through naive use of this feature - attempting to sort a list of image filenames from a digital camera, where the filenames are leading zero padded (e.g. DSCF0120.jpg) , will not sort correctly.
Maybe the example could be modified to exhibit this behaviour
(e.g. set array to -img0120.jpg','IMG0.png', 'img0012.png', 'img10.png', 'img2.png', 'img1.png', 'IMG3.png)
If the example hadn't used images I would have coded it correctly first time around!
up
3
ale152
15 years ago
Note: negatives number.
<?php
$a
= array(-5,-2,3,9);
natsort($a);
print_r($a);
?>
Will output:
Array ( [1] => -2 [0] => -5 [2] => 3 [3] => 9 )
up
1
bb7b5b9 at gmail dot com
8 years ago
This made me waste a lot of my precious youth ... natsort() is buggy if all numbers don't have the same number of decimal places.

(php 5.6.4-4ubuntu6.2)

<?php
$different_decimal_places_in_values
= array('D'=>'13.59', '14.6' => '14.6', 'C-' => '14.19');
natsort($a);
var_dump($a);

/*echoes
array(3) {
'D' =>
string(5) "13.59"
'14.6' =>
string(4) "14.6" <----------- badly ordered
'C-' =>
string(5) "14.19"
}*/
?>

While this

<?php
$same_num_decimal_places_in_values
= array('D'=>'13.59', '14.6' => '14.60', 'C-' => '14.19'); natsort($a); var_dump($a);

/*echoes
array(3) {
'D' =>
string(5) "13.59"
'C-' =>
string(5) "14.19"
'14.6' =>
string(5) "14.60" <--------- that is the correct position
}
*/

?>
up
1
lacent at gmail dot com
17 years ago
there is another rnatsort function lower on the page, but it didn't work in the context i needed it in.

reasoning for this:
sorting naturally via the keys of an array, but needing to reverse the order.

function rnatsort ( &$array = array() )
{
$keys = array_keys($array);
natsort($keys);
$total = count($keys) - 1;
$temp1 = array();
$temp2 = array();

// assigning original keys to an array with a backwards set of keys, to use in krsort();
foreach ( $keys as $key )
{
$temp1[$total] = $key;
--$total;
}

ksort($temp1);

// setting the new array, with the order from the krsort() and the values of original array.
foreach ( $temp1 as $key )
{
$temp2[$key] = $array[$key];
}

$array = $temp2;
}
up
1
h3
18 years ago
This function can be very usefull, but in some cases, like if you want to sort a MySQL query result, it's important to keep in mind that MySQL as built'in sorting functions which are way faster than resorting the result using a complex php algorythm, especially with large arrays.

ex; 'SELECT * FROM `table` ORDER BY columnName ASC, columnName2 DESC'
up
1
phpnet at moritz-abraham dot de
19 years ago
additional to the code posted by justin at redwiredesign dot com (which I found very usefull) here is a function that sorts complex arrays like this:
<?
$array['test0'] = array('main' => 'a', 'sub' => 'a');
$array['test2'] = array('main' => 'a', 'sub' => 'b');
$array['test3'] = array('main' => 'b', 'sub' => 'c');
$array['test1'] = array('main' => 'a', 'sub' => 'c');
$array['test4'] = array('main' => 'b', 'sub' => 'a');
$array['test5'] = array('main' => 'b', 'sub' => 'b');
?>
or
<?
$array[0] = array('main' => 1, 'sub' => 1);
$array[2] = array('main' => 1, 'sub' => 2);
$array[3] = array('main' => 2, 'sub' => 3);
$array[1] = array('main' => 1, 'sub' => 3);
$array[4] = array('main' => 2, 'sub' => 1);
$array[5] = array('main' => 2, 'sub' => 2);
?>
on one or more columns.

the code
<? $array = array_natsort_list($array,'main','sub'); ?>
will result in $array being sortet like this:
test0,test2,test1,test4,test5,test3
or
0,2,1,4,5,3.

you may even submit more values to the function as it uses a variable parameter list. the function starts sorting on the last and the goes on until the first sorting column is reached.

to me it was very usefull for sorting a menu having submenus and even sub-submenus.

i hope it might help you too.

here is the function:
<?
function array_natsort_list($array) {
// for all arguments without the first starting at end of list
for ($i=func_num_args();$i>1;$i--) {
// get column to sort by
$sort_by = func_get_arg($i-1);
// clear arrays
$new_array = array();
$temporary_array = array();
// walk through original array
foreach($array as $original_key => $original_value) {
// and save only values
$temporary_array[] = $original_value[$sort_by];
}
// sort array on values
natsort($temporary_array);
// delete double values
$temporary_array = array_unique($temporary_array);
// walk through temporary array
foreach($temporary_array as $temporary_value) {
// walk through original array
foreach($array as $original_key => $original_value) {
// and search for entries having the right value
if($temporary_value == $original_value[$sort_by]) {
// save in new array
$new_array[$original_key] = $original_value;
}
}
}
// update original array
$array = $new_array;
}
return $array;
}
?>
up
1
Malek Mohamed
6 years ago
$array1 = $array2 = array('IMG0.png', 'img12.png', 'img10.png', 'img2.png', 'img1.png', 'IMG3.png');

natsort($array1);
echo "\n natsort(); \n";
print_r($array1);

sort($array2, SORT_NATURAL);
echo "\n sort() with SORT_NATURAL Option\n";
print_r($array2);

Ouput:

natsort();
Array
(
[0] => IMG0.png
[5] => IMG3.png
[4] => img1.png
[3] => img2.png
[2] => img10.png
[1] => img12.png
)

sort() with SORT_NATURAL Option
Array
(
[0] => IMG0.png
[1] => IMG3.png
[2] => img1.png
[3] => img2.png
[4] => img10.png
[5] => img12.png
)

as we can see it's the same values but not the same keys, and also it's same for sort($array1, SORT_NATURAL | SORT_FLAG_CASE); and natcasesort($array2)
up
0
mvs dot php at gmail dot com
9 years ago
To naturally sort by array key, the uksort function can be used.

<?php

echo "Sort by keys\n";
$smoothie = array('orange' => 1, 'apple' => 1, 'yogurt' => 4, 'banana' => 4);
print_r($smoothie);
uksort( $smoothie, 'strnatcmp');
print_r($smoothie)

?>

Output:

Sort by keys
Array
(
[orange] => 1
[apple] => 1
[yogurt] => 4
[banana] => 4
)
Array
(
[apple] => 1
[banana] => 4
[orange] => 1
[yogurt] => 4
)

See http://php.net/manual/en/function.uksort.php for more information about uksort and http://php.net/strnatcmp for usage of strnatcmp.
up
0
@gmail bereikme
17 years ago
Here's a handy function to sort an array on 1 or more columns using natural sort:
<?php
// Example: $records = columnSort($records, array('name', 'asc', 'addres', 'desc', 'city', 'asc'));

$globalMultisortVar = array();
function
columnSort($recs, $cols) {
global
$globalMultisortVar;
$globalMultisortVar = $cols;
usort($recs, 'multiStrnatcmp');
return(
$recs);
}

function
multiStrnatcmp($a, $b) {
global
$globalMultisortVar;
$cols = $globalMultisortVar;
$i = 0;
$result = 0;
while (
$result == 0 && $i < count($cols)) {
$result = ($cols[$i + 1] == 'desc' ? strnatcmp($b[$cols[$i]], $a[$cols[$i]]) : $result = strnatcmp($a[$cols[$i]], $b[$cols[$i]]));
$i+=2;
}
return
$result;
}

?>

Greetings,

- John
up
-2
AJenbo
15 years ago
natsort might not act like you would expect with zero padding, heres a quick sample.

<?php
$array
= array('09', '8', '10', '009', '011');
natsort($array);
?>
/*
Array
(
[3] => 009
[4] => 011
[0] => 09
[1] => 8
[2] => 10
)
*/
up
-1
lil at thedreamersmaze dot spam-me-not dot org
18 years ago
There's one little thing missing in this useful bit of code posted by mbirth at webwriters dot de:

<?php

function natsort2d(&$aryInput) {
$aryTemp = $aryOut = array();
foreach (
$aryInput as $key=>$value) {
reset($value);
$aryTemp[$key]=current($value);
}
natsort($aryTemp);
foreach (
$aryTemp as $key=>$value) {
$aryOut[$key] = $aryInput[$key];
// --------^^^^ add this if you want your keys preserved!
}
$aryInput = $aryOut;
}

?>
up
-2
dotancohen splat gmail spot com
7 years ago
As noted in other notes, natsort() does _not_ always return the expected sort order. It seems especially buggy when decimals or 0 padding is used. I've filed this bug report on the issue:
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=74672
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