# sort

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

sort — Sort an array

### Description

bool sort ( array `&$array` [, int `$sort_flags` ] )

This function sorts an array. Elements will be arranged from lowest to highest when this function has completed.

> Note: This function assigns new keys for the elements in `array` . It will remove any existing keys you may have assigned, rather than just reordering the keys.

Returns `TRUE` on success or `FALSE` on failure.

Example#1 sort() example

`<?php
$fruits = array("lemon", "orange", "banana", "apple");
sort($fruits);
foreach ($fruits as $key => $val) {
echo "fruits[" . $key . "] = " . $val . "\n";
}
?>`

The above example will output:

    fruits[0] = apple
    fruits[1] = banana
    fruits[2] = lemon
    fruits[3] = orange

The fruits have been sorted in alphabetical order.

The optional second parameter `sort_flags` may be used to modify the sorting behavior using these values:

Sorting type flags:

- `SORT_REGULAR` - compare items normally (don't change types)
- `SORT_NUMERIC` - compare items numerically
- `SORT_STRING` - compare items as strings
- `SORT_LOCALE_STRING` - compare items as strings, based on the current locale. Added in PHP 4.4.0 and 5.0.2. Before PHP 6, it uses the system locale, which can be changed using setlocale(). Since PHP 6, you must use the i18n_loc_set_default() function.

> Note: The second parameter was added in PHP 4.

Warning

Be careful when sorting arrays with mixed types values because sort() can produce unpredictable results.

See also arsort(), asort(), ksort(), krsort(), natsort(), natcasesort(), rsort(), usort(), array_multisort(), and uksort().