对表中的4列数组进行排序，以便按字母顺序在每列中读取

Question

I'm trying to display a list of models in four columns, I'm doing this using codeigniters table library. Currently I'm passing an alphabetised list of models to a view and then using array_chunk to split the array into groups of four and then passing that to the CI table generator. This creates 4 columns which are alphabetical left to right.

<?php 
  // Build an array of models
  $models_array = array();
  foreach($product->compatible_models as $model)
  {
      $models_array[] = $model['brand'] . ' ' . $model['model'];
  }

  // Split the array into chunks of 4
  $data = array_chunk($models_array, 4);

  // Display the data using codeigniters table library
  $tmpl = array ( 'table_open'  => '<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width ="100%" class="mytable">' );
  $this->table->set_template($tmpl);
  $this->table->set_heading(NULL);
  echo $this->table->generate($data);
?>

Is there a way I can modify the $models_array so that the elements are sorted in such a way as to be output reading alphabetically top to bottom down each column rather than across? So that:

 a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k
 =
 a | b | c | d
 e | f | g | h
 i | j | k

Becomes:

 a,d,g,j,b,e,h,k,c,f,i
 =
 a | d | g | j
 b | e | h | k
 c | f | i

Answer 1

You could chunk the array yourself:

$array = range('a', 'k');
$numberOfColumns = 4;
$numberOfRows = ceil(sizeof($array) / $numberOfColumns);
$data = array_fill_keys(range(1, $numberOfRows), array());
$i = 1;
foreach ( $array as $k => $v ) {
    $data[$i][] = $v;
    if ( $i == $numberOfRows ) {
        $i = 1;
    } else {
        $i++;
    }
}

$data is now:

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => a
            [1] => d
            [2] => g
            [3] => j
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => b
            [1] => e
            [2] => h
            [3] => k
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [0] => c
            [1] => f
            [2] => i
        )

)