1Sort::Key::Natural(3) User Contributed Perl DocumentationSort::Key::Natural(3)
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NAME

6       Sort::Key::Natural - fast natural sorting
7

SYNOPSIS

9           use Sort::Key::Natural qw(natsort);
10
11           my @data = qw(foo1 foo23 foo6 bar12 bar1
12                         foo bar2 bar-45 foomatic b-a-r-45);
13
14           my @sorted = natsort @data;
15
16           print "@sorted\n";
17           # prints:
18           #   b-a-r-45 bar1 bar2 bar12 bar-45 foo foo1 foo6 foo23 foomatic
19
20           use Sort::Key::Natural qw(natkeysort);
21
22           my @objects = (...);
23           my @sorted = natkeysort { $_->get_id } @objects;
24

DESCRIPTION

26       This module extends the Sort::Key family of modules to support natural
27       sorting.
28
29       Under natural sorting, strings are split at word and number boundaries,
30       and the resulting substrings are compared as follows:
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32       •   numeric substrings are compared numerically
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34       •   alphabetic substrings are compared lexically
35
36       •   numeric substrings come always before alphabetic substrings
37
38       Spaces, symbols and non-printable characters are only considered for
39       splitting the string into its parts but not for sorting. For instance
40       "foo-bar-42" is broken in three substrings "foo", "bar" and 42 and
41       after that the dashes are ignored.
42
43       Note, that the sorting is case sensitive. To do a case insensitive sort
44       you have to convert the keys explicitly:
45
46         my @sorted = natkeysort { lc $_ } @data
47
48       Also, once this module is loaded, the new type "natural" (or "nat")
49       will be available from Sort::Key::Maker. For instance:
50
51         use Sort::Key::Natural;
52         use Sort::Key::Maker i_rnat_keysort => qw(integer -natural);
53
54       creates a multi-key sorter "i_rnat_keysort" accepting two keys, the
55       first to be compared as an integer and the second in natural descending
56       order.
57
58       There is also an alternative set of natural sorting functions that
59       recognize floating point numbers. They use the key type "natwf"
60       (abbreviation of "natural_with_floats").
61
62   FUNCTIONS
63       the functions that can be imported from this module are:
64
65       natsort @data
66           returns the elements of @data sorted in natural order.
67
68       rnatsort @data
69           returns the elements of @data sorted in natural descending order.
70
71       natkeysort { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
72           returns the elements on @array naturally sorted by the keys
73           resulting from applying them "CALC_KEY".
74
75       rnatkeysort { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
76           is similar to "natkeysort" but sorts the elements in descending
77           order.
78
79       natsort_inplace @data
80       rnatsort_inplace @data
81       natkeysort_inplace { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
82       rnatkeysort_inplace { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
83           these functions are similar respectively to "natsort", "rnatsort",
84           "natsortkey" and "rnatsortkey", but they sort the array @data in
85           place.
86
87       $key = mkkey_natural $string
88           given $string, returns a key that can be compared lexicographically
89           to another key obtained in the same manner, results in the same
90           order as comparing the former strings as in the natural order.
91
92           If the argument $key is not provided it defaults to $_.
93
94       natwfsort @data
95       rnatwfsort @data
96       natwfkeysort { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
97       rnatwfkeysort { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
98       natwfsort_inplace @data
99       rnatwfsort_inplace @data
100       natwfkeysort_inplace { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
101       rnatwfkeysort_inplace { CALC_KEY($_) } @data
102       mkkey_natural_with_floats $key
103           this ugly named set of functions perform in the same way as its
104           s/natwf/nat/ counterpart with the difference that they honor
105           floating point numbers embedded inside the strings.
106
107           In this context a floating point number is a string matching the
108           regular expression "/[+\-]?\d+(\.\d*)?/". Note that numbers with an
109           exponent part (i.e. 1.12E-12) are not recognized as such.
110
111           Note also that numbers without an integer part (i.e. .2 or -.12)
112           are not supported either.
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SEE ALSO

115       Sort::Key, Sort::Key::Maker.
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117       Other module providing similar functionality is Sort::Naturally.
118

120       Copyright (C) 2006, 2012, 2014 by Salvador Fandiño,
121       <sfandino@yahoo.com>.
122
123       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
124       under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.4 or, at
125       your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
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129perl v5.38.0                      2023-07-21             Sort::Key::Natural(3)
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