alphabetical_sort_with_initial_articles.php

<?php
	
	// unordered list
	$list = Array(
		0 => 'My Images',
		1 => 'Text Alignment',
		2 => 'Your New Post',
		3 => 'The More Tag',
		4 => 'The Average Post',
		5 => 'The Paginated'
	);
	
	// Desired output:
	//	Array(
	//		4 => 'The Average Post',
	//		3 => 'The More Tag',
	//		0 => 'My Images',
	//		5 => 'The Paginated',
	//		1 => 'Text Alignment',
	//		2 => 'Your New Post'
	//	)

	function alphabetical_sort_with_initial_articles($array) {
		$temp_results = [];
		$results = [];
		foreach($array as $key => $value) {
			$value_arr = explode(' ', $value);
			if($value_arr[0] === 'The') { // need to make this dynamic: the|The|etc.
				$initial_article = array_shift($value_arr);
				$temp_results[$key] = array(
					implode(' ', $value_arr),
					$initial_article
				);
			} else {
				$temp_results[$key] = array(
					implode(' ', $value_arr),
					false
				);
			}
		}
		
		uasort($temp_results, function($a, $b) {
			return ($a[0] > $b[0]);
		});
		
		foreach($temp_results as $key => $value) {
			$results[$key] = trim($value[1] . ' ' . $value[0]);
		}
		
		return $results;
	}

	print_r($list);
	echo "------------------------\n";
	print_r(alphabetical_sort_with_initial_articles($list));
	
	//josh@lear:~/Development/PHP/$ time php lists.php
	//Array
	//(
	//    [0] => My Images
	//    [1] => Text Alignment
	//    [2] => Your New Post
	//    [3] => The More Tag
	//    [4] => The Average Post
	//    [5] => The Paginated
	//)
	//------------------------
	//Array
	//(
	//    [4] => The Average Post
	//    [3] => The More Tag
	//    [0] => My Images
	//    [5] => The Paginated
	//    [1] => Text Alignment
	//    [2] => Your New Post
	//)
	//
	//real	0m0.032s
	//user	0m0.017s
	//sys	0m0.013s