Does Python have a built in function for string na

Question

Using Python 3.x, I have a list of strings for which I would like to perform a natural alphabetical sort.

Natural sort: The order by which files in Windows are sorted.

For instance, the following list is naturally sorted (what I want):

['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']

And here's the "sorted" version of the above list (what I have):

['Elm11', 'Elm12', 'Elm2', 'elm0', 'elm1', 'elm10', 'elm13', 'elm9']

I'm looking for a sort function which behaves like the first one.

Answer 1

data = ['elm13', 'elm9', 'elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm11', 'Elm2', 'elm10']

Let's analyse the data. The digit capacity of all elements is 2. And there are 3 letters in common literal part 'elm'.

So, the maximal length of element is 5. We can increase this value to make sure (for example, to 8).

Bearing that in mind, we've got a one-line solution:

data.sort(key=lambda x: '{0:0>8}'.format(x).lower())

without regular expressions and external libraries!

print(data)

>>> ['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'elm13']

Explanation:

for elm in data:
    print('{0:0>8}'.format(elm).lower())

>>>
0000elm0
0000elm1
0000elm2
0000elm9
000elm10
000elm11
000elm13

Answer 2

I suggest you simply use the key keyword argument of sorted to achieve your desired list
For example:

to_order= [e2,E1,e5,E4,e3]
ordered= sorted(to_order, key= lambda x: x.lower())
    # ordered should be [E1,e2,e3,E4,e5]

Answer 3

a = ['H1', 'H100', 'H10', 'H3', 'H2', 'H6', 'H11', 'H50', 'H5', 'H99', 'H8']
b = ''
c = []

def bubble(bad_list):#bubble sort method
        length = len(bad_list) - 1
        sorted = False

        while not sorted:
                sorted = True
                for i in range(length):
                        if bad_list[i] > bad_list[i+1]:
                                sorted = False
                                bad_list[i], bad_list[i+1] = bad_list[i+1], bad_list[i] #sort the integer list 
                                a[i], a[i+1] = a[i+1], a[i] #sort the main list based on the integer list index value

for a_string in a: #extract the number in the string character by character
        for letter in a_string:
                if letter.isdigit():
                        #print letter
                        b += letter
        c.append(b)
        b = ''

print 'Before sorting....'
print a
c = map(int, c) #converting string list into number list
print c
bubble(c)

print 'After sorting....'
print c
print a

Acknowledgments:

Bubble Sort Homework

How to read a string one letter at a time in python

Answer 4

The above answers are good for the specific example that was shown, but miss several useful cases for the more general question of natural sort. I just got bit by one of those cases, so created a more thorough solution:

def natural_sort_key(string_or_number):
    """
    by Scott S. Lawton <[e-mail]> 2014-12-11; public domain and/or CC0 license

    handles cases where simple 'int' approach fails, e.g.
        ['0.501', '0.55'] floating point with different number of significant digits
        [0.01, 0.1, 1]    already numeric so regex and other string functions won't work (and aren't required)
        ['elm1', 'Elm2']  ASCII vs. letters (not case sensitive)
    """

    def try_float(astring):
        try:
            return float(astring)
        except:
            return astring

    if isinstance(string_or_number, basestring):
        string_or_number = string_or_number.lower()

        if len(re.findall('[.]\d', string_or_number)) <= 1:
            # assume a floating point value, e.g. to correctly sort ['0.501', '0.55']
            # '.' for decimal is locale-specific, e.g. correct for the Anglosphere and Asia but not continental Europe
            return [try_float(s) for s in re.split(r'([\d.]+)', string_or_number)]
        else:
            # assume distinct fields, e.g. IP address, phone number with '.', etc.
            # caveat: might want to first split by whitespace
            # TBD: for unicode, replace isdigit with isdecimal
            return [int(s) if s.isdigit() else s for s in re.split(r'(\d+)', string_or_number)]
    else:
        # consider: add code to recurse for lists/tuples and perhaps other iterables
        return string_or_number

Test code and several links (on and off of StackOverflow) are here: http://productarchitect.com/code/better-natural-sort.py

Feedback welcome. That's not meant to be a definitive solution; just a step forward.

Answer 5

Try this:

import re

def natural_sort(l): 
    convert = lambda text: int(text) if text.isdigit() else text.lower() 
    alphanum_key = lambda key: [ convert(c) for c in re.split('([0-9]+)', key) ] 
    return sorted(l, key = alphanum_key)

Output:

['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']

See it working online: ideone.

Code adapted from here: Sorting for Humans : Natural Sort Order.

Answer 6

One option is to turn the string into a tuple and replace digits using expanded form http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_expanded_form_mean

that way a90 would become ("a",90,0) and a1 would become ("a",1)

below is some sample code (which isn't very efficient due to the way It removes leading 0's from numbers)

alist=["something1",
    "something12",
    "something17",
    "something2",
    "something25and_then_33",
    "something25and_then_34",
    "something29",
    "beta1.1",
    "beta2.3.0",
    "beta2.33.1",
    "a001",
    "a2",
    "z002",
    "z1"]

def key(k):
    nums=set(list("0123456789"))
        chars=set(list(k))
    chars=chars-nums
    for i in range(len(k)):
        for c in chars:
            k=k.replace(c+"0",c)
    l=list(k)
    base=10
    j=0
    for i in range(len(l)-1,-1,-1):
        try:
            l[i]=int(l[i])*base**j
            j+=1
        except:
            j=0
    l=tuple(l)
    print l
    return l

print sorted(alist,key=key)

output:

('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 1)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 10, 2)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 10, 7)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 2)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 5, 'a', 'n', 'd', '_', 't', 'h', 'e', 'n', '_', 30, 3)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 5, 'a', 'n', 'd', '_', 't', 'h', 'e', 'n', '_', 30, 4)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 9)
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 1, '.', 1)
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 2, '.', 3, '.')
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 2, '.', 30, 3, '.', 1)
('a', 1)
('a', 2)
('z', 2)
('z', 1)
['a001', 'a2', 'beta1.1', 'beta2.3.0', 'beta2.33.1', 'something1', 'something2', 'something12', 'something17', 'something25and_then_33', 'something25and_then_34', 'something29', 'z1', 'z002']