Arrange an array by the first letter

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Long time, no post 🙂
Here is a small PHP tips&tricks post : we have an array full of values, let’s say a country list (in this example the list is limited, we don’t want to see 190+ values).

PHP [Show Plain Code]:
  2. (
  3.     [0] => Array
  4.         (
  5.             [0] => Afghanistan
  6.             [name] => Afghanistan
  7.             [1] => AF
  8.             [code] => AF
  9.         )
  10.  
  11.     [1] => Array
  12.         (
  13.             [0] => Albania
  14.             [name] => Albania
  15.             [1] => AL
  16.             [code] => AL
  17.         )
  18.  
  19.     [2] => Array
  20.         (
  21.             [0] => Algeria
  22.             [name] => Algeria
  23.             [1] => DZ
  24.             [code] => DZ
  25.         )
  26.  
  27.  
  28.     [3] => Array
  29.         (
  30.             [0] => Bangladesh
  31.             [name] => Bangladesh
  32.             [1] => BD
  33.             [code] => BD
  34.         )
  35.  
  36.     [4] => Array
  37.         (
  38.             [0] => Barbados
  39.             [name] => Barbados
  40.             [1] => BB
  41.             [code] => BB
  42.         )
  43.  
  44.    
  45.     [5] => Array
  46.         (
  47.             [0] => Belgium
  48.             [name] => Belgium
  49.             [1] => BE
  50.             [code] => BE
  51.         )
  52.  
  53.  
  54.     [6] => Array
  55.         (
  56.             [0] => Brazil
  57.             [name] => Brazil
  58.             [1] => BR
  59.             [code] => BR
  60.         )
  61.  
  62.  
  63.     [7] => Array
  64.         (
  65.             [0] => Cape Verde
  66.             [name] => Cape Verde
  67.             [1] => CV
  68.             [code] => CV
  69.         )
  70.  
  71.     [8] => Array
  72.         (
  73.             [0] => Cayman Islands
  74.             [name] => Cayman Islands
  75.             [1] => KY
  76.             [code] => KY
  77.         )
  78. )

and we want to display like this

-A-
  • Afghanistan
  • Albania
  • Algeria
-B-
  • Bangladesh
  • Barbados
  • Belgium
  • Brazil
-C-
  • Cape Verde
  • Cayman Islands

, the right and easy way to do this would be to retain in a variable the first letter of the last country and in another variable the first letter of the current country. We compare them and if they are different we just output the first letter and then the name of the current country. All this in just few and simple to understand lines, right? 😛

"; } print $v[$i]["name"] . "
"; $last_letter = $current_letter; }
PHP [Show Plain Code]:
  1. //try to do the A-Z list
  2. $v = function to get your country list from a DB sorted by country name!;
  3. $last_letter = ”;
  4. $current_letter = ”;
  5. for ($i=0;$i<count($v);$i++)
  6. {
  7.         $current_letter = substr($v[$i]["name"],0,1);
  8.         if ($last_letter != $current_letter)
  9.         {
  10.                 print "<div align=center>" . $current_letter . "</div>";
  11.         }
  12.         print $v[$i]["name"] . "<br />";
  13.         $last_letter = $current_letter;
  14. }

I hope this will help someone 😉

Revision
09.12.2007, 12:09 : added “sorted by country name!” comment in the php code example. Thanks to Dragos.