Laravel sort array by created_at - arrays

Question

I need to sort my json array in chronological order by it's created_at timestamps.
[{
"id": 1,
"message": "hello",
"company_id": 7,
"investor_id": 35,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 12:56:34",
"updated_at": "2015-07-01 12:56:34"
}, {
"id": 2,
"message": "helloWorld",
"company_id": 7,
"investor_id": 35,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 12:56:53",
"updated_at": "2015-07-01 12:56:53"
}, {
"id": 3,
"message": "sup",
"company_id": 7,
"investor_id": 35,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 13:12:53",
"updated_at": "2015-07-01 13:12:53"
}, {
"id": 4,
"message": "sup",
"company_id": 7,
"investor_id": 35,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 13:13:04",
"updated_at": "2015-07-01 13:13:04"
}, {
"id": 5,
"message": "sup",
"company_id": 7,
"investor_id": 35,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 15:06:39",
"updated_at": "2015-07-01 15:06:39"
}, {
"id": 1,
"message": "yo yo ",
"investor_id": 35,
"company_id": 7,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 22:09:36",
"updated_at": "-0001-11-30 00:00:00"
}, {
"id": 2,
"message": "sup nigga",
"investor_id": 35,
"company_id": 7,
"match_id": 2,
"created_at": "2015-07-01 14:00:00",
"updated_at": "-0001-11-30 00:00:00"
}]
Can anyone teach me how do i have tried many solutions in stackoverflow . Many of them says array cannot be used with "sortBy" .
This is part of my code :
$companyMessage = Company_Message::where('match_id','=',$match_id);
$investorMessage = Investor_Message::where('match_id','=',$match_id);
$message = array();
if($companyMessage->count()>0 || $investorMessage->count() > 0){
if($lastActivityDate == null ){
//load all messages before
if($companyMessage !=null){
foreach ($companyMessage->get() as $cm) {
array_push($message,$cm);
}
}
if($investorMessage !=null){
foreach($investorMessage->get() as $im){
array_push($message,$im);
}
}
return $message ;
}

Answer 1

I think you can do this using use a laravel database collection api instead of array and add item to collection and use sortBy method on collection,
$col = new \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection();
if ($companyMessage != null) {
foreach($companyMessage - > get() as $cm) {
$col->add($cm);
}
}
if ($investorMessage != null) {
foreach($investorMessage - > get() as $im) {
$col->add($im);
}
}
$col = $col->sortBy('created_at');
//return the json
return Response::json($jsonArr->toArray());
--- OR ----
Try this but i didn't tested it. If this works then this would be the best way to do this.
$companyMessage = Company_Message::where('match_id','=',$match_id);
$investorMessage = Investor_Message::where('match_id','=',$match_id);
//$companyMessage & $investorMessage both are laravel database collection,
// so you can use merge method on collection to merge these two collections.
$allResults = $companyMessage->merge($investorMessage);
//use laravel collection sort method to sort the collection by created_at
$allResults = $allResults->sortBy('created_at');
//return the json
return Response::json($allResults->toArray());

Answer 2

if($companyMessage !=null){
foreach ($companyMessage->get() as $cm) {
array_push($message,$cm);
}
}
if($investorMessage !=null){
foreach($investorMessage->get() as $im){
array_push($message,$im);
}
}
$message = array_values(array_sort($message, function ($value) {
return $value['created_at'];
}));
Hey man , i found a better solution to sort my array. The answer can be found at laravel docs
http://laravel.com/docs/5.1/helpers#method-array-sort