pombredanne/naturalsorter

Sorting an array in a natural way

NaturalSorter

The Mission

This open source project is sorting arrays in a natural way. Assume you have an string array like this here

["init30", "init20", "init200"]

If you are sorting this in ruby with ".sort" you will get this result

["init20", "init200", "init30"]

Because the default sort method does not recognize the numbers in the string. The NaturalSorter will return this result.

["init20", "init30", "init200"]

Installation

You should add this line to your Gemfile

gem 'naturalsorter', '2.0.10'

and run this command in your app root directory

bundle install

Version Sorting

This fork contains some special algorithms to sort version numbers in a natural order. This project is used at https://www.versioneye.com to show versions of selected open source projects.

API

These 2 methods are sorting a simple array of Strings. The name of the methods and the parameters are self explained.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort(array, caseinsensitive = false, asc = true)

And this here is for more advanced sorting. Where you can put in a array of objects and the method which should called on every object for comparison.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort_by_method(array, method, caseinsensitive = false, asc = true)

These methods are based on a different algorithm. Especially optimized for sorting version strings.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort_version(array, asc = true)

This here is again for an array with objects. Especially optimized for sorting version strings.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort_version_by_method(array, method, asc = true )

Get the newest version from the both given.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.get_newest_version(first, second)

Is a bigger than b?

Naturalsorter::Sorter.bigger?(a, b)

Is a bigger than b or equal?

Naturalsorter::Sorter.bigger_or_equal?(a, b)

Is a smaller than b?

Naturalsorter::Sorter.smaller?(a, b)

Is a smaller than b or equal?

Naturalsorter::Sorter.smaller_or_equal?(a, b)

This is for the Ruby GEM notation '>'. For example '>1.1' fits '1.2' and '1.9' and '1.14'. But not 2.0. The parameter version would be for example '>1.1' and the parameter newest_version would be the current newest version of the GEM, for example "2.0". The method will return false in this case because '>1.1' doesn't fit anymore the newest version.

Naturalsorter::Sorter.is_version_current?(version, newest_version)

How To Use - Examples

After the installation you can use it like this:

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort(["a400", "a5", "a1"], true)

it will return the array ["a1", "a5", "a400"]. The second parameter is for "caseinsensitive".

If you have more advanced objects you want to sort, you should use the second method. Assume you have a Class User with 3 attributes: "firstname", "lastname", "age" and you want to sort an array of class Users by "firstname".

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort_by_method(users, "firstname", true)

Isn't that awesome?

The next methods are based on my own implementation, optimized for sorting version strings like "1.1, 1.4, 1.10"

Naturalsorter::Sorter.sort_version(["1.10", "1.1", "1.2"])

will return the array ["1.1", "1.2", "1.10"]

Alan Davies

The first 4 methods in this library are internal based on the natcmp implementation from Alan Davies. All glory to him for his awesome work.