Slightly Remarkable

However, in the order given, the color names near the beginning of the array were shorter than the ones near the end of the array; for example, “green” came before “darkgreen.” As a result, after replacement occurred, “darkgreen” became “dark#4b4b4b” (by replacing only the “green” part with a hex equivalent, instead of the entire “darkgreen” part) instead of the darkgreen hex equivalent. Obviously this was unacceptable, so the easiest way to fix the problem was to sort the array in such a way that the shorter names occurred last. Fortunately, PHP allows you to create custom algorithms for sorting arrays, and that’s just what I’ve done.

1. function sortByLength($a,$b){
2. if($a == $b) return 0;
3. return (strlen($a) > strlen($b) ? -1 : 1);
4. }
5. Download this code: sort_arrays_by_length.txt

Simple, yes, but effective.

Update: This code (written when I was more of a PHP novice) is erroneous. The following function is ideal. As mentioned in the comments, call this function using the PHP usort() (or similar callback) function.

1. function sortByLength($a,$b){
2. return (strlen($a) - strlen($b));
3. }
4. Download this code: sort_arrays_by_length_updated.txt