PHP Sort array of strings in natural and standard orders (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

You are given an array of strings. You have to sort the given array in standard way (case of alphabets matters) as well as natural way (alphabet case does not matter).

Input : arr[] = {"Geeks", "for", "geeks"}
Output : Standard sorting: Geeks for geeks
Natural sorting: for Geeks geeks

Input : arr[] = {"Code", "at", "geeks", "Practice"}
Output : Standard sorting: Code Practice at geeks
Natural sorting: at Code geeks Practice

If you are trying to sort the array of string in a simple manner you can simple create a comparison function for character comparison and sort the given array of strings. But that will differentiate lower case and upper case alphabets. To solve this problem if you are opting to solve this in c/java you have to write your own comparison function which specially take care of cases of alphabets. But if we will opt PHP as our language then we can sort it directly with the help of natcasesort(). natcasesort() : It sort strings regardless of their case. Means 'a' & 'A' are treated smaller than 'b' & 'B' in this sorting method.

// declare array
$arr = array ("Hello", "to", "geeks", "for", "GEEks");

// Standard sort standardresult=sort(standard_result = sort(standardr​esult=sort(arr);
print_r($standart_result);

// natural sort naturalresult=natcasesort(natural_result = natcasesort(naturalr​esult=natcasesort(arr);
print_r($natural_result);

PHP `

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Output:

Array after Standard sorting: GEEks Hello for geeks to
Array after Natural sorting: for geeks GEEks Hello to

**Example 2: Here's a PHP script that sorts an array of strings in both natural (natsort) and standard alphabetical orders (sort) within a single execution, demonstrating different sorting behaviors for strings with numeric components.

PHP `

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Output

Sorted in natural order: Array ( [0] => image1.jpg [2] => image2.jpg [1] => image10.jpg ) Sorted in standard order: Array ( [0] => image1.jpg [1] => image10.jpg [2] => image2.j...