Natural sort in C - "array of strings, containing numbers and letters"

Question

Looking for a proven to work algorithm for production. Did see this example but not finding much else on the web or in books.

i.e. file_10.txt > file_2.txt

Thanks.

Answer 1

The basic sort function would be standard C qsort(). It is parameterized to take a comparison function, and the comparison function is what you would need to write to do the natural ordering.

Your cross-referenced question includes a C implementation of a comparison function.

A Google search 'natural sort c' shows a SourceForge implementation.

Answer 2

I assume you already know the C standard library qsort() function:

void qsort(void *base,
           size_t nel,
           size_t width,
           int (*compar)(const void *, const void *);

That last parameter is a function pointer, which means you can pass any function to it. You could use strcmp(), in fact, but that would give you ASCIIbetical, and you specifically want a natural sort.

In that case, you could write one pretty easily:

#include <ctype.h>

int natural(const char *a, const char *b)
{
    if(isalpha(*a) && isalpha(*b))
      {
        // compare two letters
      }
    else
      {
        if(isalpha(*a))
          {
            // compare a letter to a digit (or other non-letter)
          }
        else if(isalpha(*b))
          {
            // compare a digit/non-letter to a letter
          }
        else
          {
            // compare two digits/non-letters
          }
      }
}

Some of the elses could be cleared up if you just return early, but there's a basic structure. Check ctype.h for functions like isalpha() (if a character is part of the alphabet), isdigit(), isspace(), and more.

Answer 3

Here is a (tested) comparison function that does the job. It understands only unsigned integers, not signed integers or floating point:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <ctype.h>

/* like strcmp but compare sequences of digits numerically */
int strcmpbynum(const char *s1, const char *s2) {
  for (;;) {
    if (*s2 == '\0')
      return *s1 != '\0';
    else if (*s1 == '\0')
      return 1;
    else if (!(isdigit(*s1) && isdigit(*s2))) {
      if (*s1 != *s2)
        return (int)*s1 - (int)*s2;
      else
        (++s1, ++s2);
    } else {
      char *lim1, *lim2;
      unsigned long n1 = strtoul(s1, &lim1, 10);
      unsigned long n2 = strtoul(s2, &lim2, 10);
      if (n1 > n2)
        return 1;
      else if (n1 < n2)
        return -1;
      s1 = lim1;
      s2 = lim2;
    }
  }
}

If you want to use it with qsort, use this auxiliary function:

static int compare(const void *p1, const void *p2) {
  const char * const *ps1 = p1;
  const char * const *ps2 = p2;
  return strcmpbynum(*ps1, *ps2);
}

And you can do something on the order of

qsort(lines, next, sizeof(lines[0]), compare);