A cleaner (I think) way to sort a list of files into reversed order based on their modification date.
<?php
$path = $_SERVER[DOCUMENT_ROOT]."/files/";
$dh = @opendir($path);
while (false !== ($file=readdir($dh)))
{
if (substr($file,0,1)!=".")
$files[]=array(filemtime($path.$file),$file); #2-D array
}
closedir($dh);
if ($files)
{
rsort($files); #sorts by filemtime
#done! Show the files sorted by modification date
foreach ($files as $file)
echo "$file[0] $file[1]<br>\n"; #file[0]=Unix timestamp; file[1]=filename
}
?>
rsort
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
rsort — Sort an array in reverse order
Description
bool rsort
( array
&$array
[, int $sort_flags
= SORT_REGULAR
] )This function sorts an array in reverse order (highest to lowest).
Parameters
-
array
-
The input array.
-
sort_flags
-
You may modify the behavior of the sort using the optional parameter
sort_flags
, for details see sort().
Return Values
Returns TRUE
on success or FALSE
on failure.
Examples
Example #1 rsort() example
<?php
$fruits = array("lemon", "orange", "banana", "apple");
rsort($fruits);
foreach ($fruits as $key => $val) {
echo "$key = $val\n";
}
?>
The above example will output:
0 = orange 1 = lemon 2 = banana 3 = apple
The fruits have been sorted in reverse alphabetical order.
Notes
Note: This function assigns new keys to the elements in
array
. It will remove any existing keys that may have been assigned, rather than just reordering the keys.
See Also
- arsort() - Sort an array in reverse order and maintain index association
- krsort() - Sort an array by key in reverse order
- The comparison of array sorting functions

Alex M
27-Jun-2005 07:39
pshirkey at boosthardware dot com
14-Jan-2005 01:06
I needed a function that would sort a list of files into reversed order based on their modification date.
Here's what I came up with:
function display_content($dir,$ext){
$f = array();
if (is_dir($dir)) {
if ($dh = opendir($dir)) {
while (($folder = readdir($dh)) !== false) {
if (preg_match("/\s*$ext$/", $folder)) {
$fullpath = "$dir/$folder";
$mtime = filemtime ($fullpath);
$ff = array($mtime => $fullpath);
$f = array_merge($f, $ff);
}
}
rsort($f, SORT_NUMERIC);
while (list($key, $val) = each($f)) {
$fcontents = file($val, "r");
while (list($key, $val) = each($fcontents))
echo "$val\n";
}
}
}
closedir($dh);
}
Call it like so:
display_content("folder","extension");
ray at non-aol dot com
02-Nov-2004 07:49
Like sort(), rsort() assigns new keys for the elements in array. It will remove any existing keys you may have assigned, rather than just reordering the keys. This means that it will destroy associative keys.
$animals = array("dog"=>"large", "cat"=>"medium", "mouse"=>"small");
print_r($animals);
//Array ( [dog] => large [cat] => medium [mouse] => small )
rsort($animals);
print_r($animals);
//Array ( [0] => small [1] => medium [2] => large )
Use KSORT() or KRSORT() to preserve associative keys.
rnk-php at kleckner dot net
17-Jun-2003 12:37
Apparently rsort does not put arrays with one value back to zero. If you have an array like: $tmp = array(9 => 'asdf') and then rsort it, $tmp[0] is empty and $tmp[9] stays as is.
slevy1 at pipeline dot com
12-Jun-2001 11:15
I thought rsort was working successfully or on a multi-dimensional array of strings that had first been sorted with usort(). But, I noticed today that the array was only partially in descending order. I tried array_reverse on it and that seems to have solved things.