Windows text sort sequence problems

Hi folks
Using standard (UK English alphabet) text sort sequence why do I get stuff shown as 1, 10, 11, 12 etc then 2, etc -- what I need is 1,2,---9,10 11 etc.
Any ideas

I've arranged UK keyboard, UK alphabet etc so what's the problem.

Cheers
jimbo

In Explorer, or a particular app?

Yes, the text matching is done from left-to-right, so file sorting does not recognise such thing as units, tens, and hundreds. To get around that, I usually save files as file01, file02, ..., file10, file11, file12, etc. That way I don't encounter the problem in Explorer, when I go to sort things in order - until I reach file99, that is!!!

Same goes with date sequences. I always label files (or folder) names as file-year-month-day. That way I can sort them in alpha-numerical order, and my files will appear in my named date order.

Maybe not what you are looking for, but I hope it helps.

johnlgalt said:

In Explorer, or a particular app?

Click to expand...

Hi there
sometimes browsing multi-media files in VLC or similar apps (which use the file explorer API for browsing) the files show up 1,11,12....2 etc which is annoying if you want to play the files in track order. Renaming a whole slew of files is a mess !!!! -- I know when creating new files to prefix with leading zeros gets round problem.

Dates aren't a problem in European format (YYMMDD or DDMMYY so that works properly).

Cheers
jimbo

Windows uses lexicographical sorting - 1,2,3,4 etc are treated as alphabet characters, not numerical, so it sorts on 1st "letter", then second "letter" etc. This is historical due to "Hollerith" characters right basck in dawn of digital computing.

So to sort, you have to (for numbers up to 999), use leading digits of 00, for single digit, and 0 for double digit

so if you had 1, 2, 4, 26, 27, 31, 46, 106, 156, 999 you use 001, 002, 004, 026, 027, 031, 046, 106, 156, 999

This would nest sort by 1st char, and then by 2nd, then by third
1st 2nd 3rd
0 0 1
0 0 2
0 0 3 ---> as 1st 2 digits same, it sorts on 3rd digit
0 2 6 ----> now sorting on 2nd row, then 3rd row
0 2 7
0 3 1 - back to sorting on second row
0 4 7
1 0 6 - now back to sorting on 1st row
1 5 6 - now moving to second row.
9 9 9 - back to 1st row


Note sorting on date - Backward European YYMMDD always sorts in order. Forward European DDMMYY does not!

Forward EU 12th June 21, 11th July 21, 13th July 22,14th June 22 will get incorrectly sorted as

110721
120621
130722
140622


Backward EU will get correctly sorted as

210612
210711
220614
220713

i.e in correct order.

Of course, the illogical US MMDDYY format will sort wrong whether forwards or backwards for these selected numbers

US forward
061221
061422
071121
071322

US Backward
211107
211206
220713
221406

Only EU backwards will sort correctly for all dates.

Yup - that is exactly how I force sorting on my system.

As an additional trick. I use to put any special character like #, ~, -, or elses before filenames when it comes to a folder with hundred files in it, so that it always stays on top of the list.

I usually sort by date (descending), in most cases, so I alter the dates of files I need to always show (or always hide) to ridiculously out of range dates, like year 3333, or year 1970.

Implementing the same trick using filenames as you mention, I would use special characters to keep files at the top of the list when sorting by name, and letters like XXX YYY and ZZZ at the beginning of the filename to force them to the end of a list.