PHP: Putting a string in alphabetical order -

i'm making website list books, , want artists/authors names in alphabetical order. made php, breaks when there more 2 artists/author... can me? phpfiddle link: http://phpfiddle.org/main/code/se6p-wpw3

code:

<?php $artist = "john doe, ami, lolll"; if (strpos($artist,',') !== false) {     echo "multiple artists\n";     $artistchar = str_split($artist);     $start = 0;     $artistnum = 0;     ($i = 0; $i < count($artistchar); $i = $i + 1) {         //echo ($i)."\n";         //echo ($artistchar[$i])."\n";         if ($artistchar[$i] == ',') {             echo "implode\n";             echo ($i)."\n";             echo ($start)."\n";             $stop = $i;             echo ($stop)."\n";             $artistnum = $artistnum + 1;             ${'artist'.$artistnum} = implode(array_slice($artistchar, $start, $stop));             echo (${'artist'.$artistnum})."\n";             $i = $i + 1;             $start = $i + 1;         }         if ($i == count($artistchar)) {             echo "implode2\n";             $artistnum = $artistnum + 1;             ${'artist'.$artistnum} = implode(array_slice($artistchar, $start, $i));             echo (${'artist'.$artistnum})."\n";         }     } } else {     echo 'only 1 artist'; } ?> 

$artist_aray = explode(',', $artist); // split input @ commas $artist_array = array_map('trim', $artist_array); // remove spaces around commas sort($artist_array); // put them in alphabetical order foreach ($artist_array $a) {     echo "$a\n"; }