What best practices should be followed when sorting and outputting images in PHP?

When sorting and outputting images in PHP, it is important to first retrieve the image files from a directory, sort them based on specific criteria (such as file name or date modified), and then output them in a visually appealing manner on a webpage. One common approach is to use the scandir() function to retrieve the files, sort them using functions like usort() or ksort(), and then loop through the sorted array to display the images using HTML img tags.

// Retrieve image files from a directory
$directory = 'images/';
$images = array_diff(scandir($directory), array('..', '.'));

// Sort images based on file name
sort($images);

// Output images in a gallery format
foreach ($images as $image) {
    echo '<img src="' . $directory . $image . '" alt="' . $image . '">';
}