Windows Explorer sort method

Question

I\'m looking for an algorithm that sorts strings similar to the way files (and folders) are sorted in Windows Explorer. It seems that numeric values in strings are taken int

Answer 1

Have a look at

http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2007/12/13/natural-sorting

for some source code.

Answer 2

This is a try to implement it in Java:

Java - Sort Strings like Windows Explorer

In short it splits the two Strings to compare in Letter - Digit Parts and compares this parts in a specific way to achieve this kind of sorting.

Answer 3

It's called "natural sort order". Jeff had a pretty extensive blog entry on it a while ago, which describes the difficulties you might overlook and has links to several implementations.

Answer 4

I also posted a related question with additional hints and pitfalls:

Sorting strings is much harder than you thought

Answer 5

There is StrCmpLogicalW, but it's only available starting with Windows XP and only implemented as Unicode.

Some background information: http://www.siao2.com/2006/10/01/778990.aspx

Answer 6

I posted code (C#) and a description of the algorithm here:

Natural Sort Order in C#