Order values in German alphabetical order with PHP

Order numerical values or things like dates is no problem with PHP. Even ordering by alphabet isn't that big of a deal. But when you use another language then English, things get interesting.

Sorting by a date would look something like this:

$collection = new ArrayCollection($externalPartners);

/** @var \ArrayIterator $iterator */
$iterator = $collection->getIterator();
$iterator->uasort(function ($a, $b) {
    /* @var LifecycleInterface $a */
    /* @var LifecycleInterface $b */
    return ($a->getCreated() >= $b->getCreated()) ? 1 : -1;
});

$sorted = iterator_to_array($iterator);

Just putting in a string instead of getCreated() would sort them in alphabetical order. But only in the English language. German for example contains special characters like Ä, Ü and Ö, which would be added to the end of the alphabet which isn't correct in the German language.

To sort in a specific language you can use the \Collator class. Sorting with this would look like the following:

$collection = new ArrayCollection($references);

/** @var \ArrayIterator $iterator */
$iterator = $collection->getIterator();
$iterator->uasort(function ($a, $b) {
    /* @var NameInterface $a */
    /* @var NameInterface $b */

    $collator = new \Collator('de_DE');

    return $collator->compare($a->getName(), $b->getName());
});

$sorted = iterator_to_array($iterator);