PHP - Sort array by date - not first element

Question

Reading from a flatfile... I need to display array elements sorted by DESCENDING date (= most current date displays first).

Not sure... Is there a way to simply sort the data by element[1] or do I need to put this data into a second array and then sort that array... or ??

Then... PLEASE include the print section... the variables necessary to output the data. Thanks.

(*Yes, I have seen some other examples of this on 'stack.' However, I have not been able to output the values correctly when using the 'compare.')

RAW DATA:
yes|2012-12-12|Jim None
yes|2013-06-04|Joe Smith
no|2013-04-21|Jane Doe

SORTED DATA:
yes|2013-06-04|Joe Smith
no|2013-04-21|Jane Doe
yes|2012-12-12|Jim None

while (!feof($file) ) {
    $lines = fgets($file);
    $ele = explode('|', $lines);

    $db_display = $ele[0];
    $db_date = $ele[1];
    $db_name = $ele[2];

    $db_name = substr_replace($db_name,"",-1); // trim last char

    echo '<td>'.$db_name.'</td><td>'.$db_date.'</td>';
}

Answer 1

This should get you there...

Assuming you are getting from a file name $infile

$fp = fopen($infile, "w");
$data = array();
while ($rec = fgetcsv($fp, 2048, "|")){
         $data[] = $rec;
}


usort($data, function ($a, $b){
     // if you want to reverse the sort swap a for b
     return strtotime($b[1]) - strtotime($a[1]);
});



foreach($data as $v){
   echo implode("|", $v)."\n";
}

Ouput to standard out ... you can just as easily fopen/fputcsv the same data.