ktsu.Sorting 1.0.2-pre.2

ktsu.Sorting

A .NET library that provides advanced sorting utilities for specialized sorting scenarios.

Overview

ktsu.Sorting offers a collection of sorting utilities to address common sorting challenges that aren't easily handled by standard sorting methods. The library is designed to be modular and extensible, allowing you to use only the components you need.

Components

NaturalStringComparer

The first component in the ktsu.Sorting library is the NaturalStringComparer, which provides natural string comparison by treating embedded numeric parts as numbers rather than characters.

Problem

Standard string sorting sorts strings character by character, which results in unintuitive ordering for strings containing numbers:

"file1.txt"
"file10.txt"
"file2.txt"

Solution

NaturalStringComparer sorts strings the way a human would expect, recognizing and comparing embedded numbers as numeric values:

"file1.txt"
"file2.txt"
"file10.txt"

Installation

Package Manager

Install-Package ktsu.Sorting

.NET CLI

dotnet add package ktsu.Sorting

Usage

Using NaturalStringComparer

using ktsu.Sorting;

// Create a comparer instance
var comparer = new NaturalStringComparer();

// Compare individual strings
int result = comparer.Compare("file10.txt", "file2.txt"); // Returns > 0 (10 > 2)

// Sort an array using the natural comparer
string[] files = { "file10.txt", "file1.txt", "file100.txt", "file2.txt" };
Array.Sort(files, comparer);
// Result: "file1.txt", "file2.txt", "file10.txt", "file100.txt"

// Use with LINQ
var sortedFiles = files.OrderBy(file => file, new NaturalStringComparer());

Features

NaturalStringComparer

• Correctly sorts strings containing numbers in a human-friendly order
• Handles mixed alphanumeric strings
• Properly compares strings with leading zeros
• Fully compatible with .NET's IComparer<string> interface
• Can be used with Array.Sort(), LINQ's OrderBy(), and other sorting mechanisms

Examples

NaturalStringComparer Examples

The NaturalStringComparer correctly sorts strings like:

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.