Re: Sorting Algorythms

[Raymond Wiker <rwiker@gmail.com>]

YourName@YourISP.com (Your Name) writes:

> In article <m2bodpsr42.fsf@unknown-b8-f6-b1-15-88-0d.lan>, Raymond Wiker
> <rwiker@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hmmm... I was going to ignore this post, as discussions about sorting
>> algorithms in general is not what I read csa for, but...
>> 
>> ... "most sorts will not sort numbers properly"?
>> 
>> That's about the weirdest thing I've ever heard said about sorting
>> algorithms.
>> 
> <snip>
>
> I don't know about "most", but many sorting systems, including the Mac OS 
> Finder windows, don't sort numbers numerically because they use texting
> ordering where "2" comes after "10" due to "2" being after "1". To get
> around it you need to use "02" instead, or in the case of older Mac OS
> versions there was an extension you could download to correct the sorting
> order for numbers.

Hmmm... first of all (and probably also "least of all" :-) - the Finder
in current MacOs certainly sorts files with numeric parts correctly. I
just checked with files named 1 .. 11 and File1 .. File11. (The ls
command in /bin/bash does not, and shouldn't, because it is not expected
to.) 

More importantly, a key part of every sort operation is "comparison". If
you want to sort string representations of numbers, you need a
comparison function that works on string representations of
numbers. This has absolutely nothing to do with the sort algorithm
itself.