Creating objects sorting algorithm

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#1

I want to sort objects (instances) inside other instances.
obraz
We have folder Example1 and objectXs, I can get X by using

string.gsub(child.Name, "object", "")

and then I would like to save it to the table. Like this below:

{
	['1'] = workspace.Example1.object1,
	['2'] = workspace.Example1.object2,
	['3'] = workspace.Example1.object3,
	['4'] = workspace.Example1.object4,
}

now, I don’t care if order of them. They can be like that
obraz
but, when we will have for example 1, 3 and so on it will raise an error because we don’t have 2.
obraz
or when one of the objects is not named like a pattern
obraz

Does someone have any idea about that?

Thank you!

#2
  1. Store the Instances in a table and set their parents to nil.
  2. Sort the instances in the table by their names.
  3. Iterate through the table and set the parent of each Instance to the target
#3

I think you didnt understand me. I dont want to move them anywhere. Just check if Objects in Folder (in above example) are sorted so object1 exist, object2 exist and so on

#4

Oh ok, I believe that you get the exact order if you just get the children with Instance:GetChildren(). Then you can evaluate the resulting table (see @nicemike40’s answer).

#5

Do you want something like this?

local obj = {}

local folder = workspace.Folder

local children = folder:GetChildren()

for i = 1, #children do
    local found = folder:FindFirstChild("object" .. i)
    
    if not found then
        -- either there's an extra object or we're missing a num
        error(string.format("could not find object%d", i))
    end
    
    obj[i] = found
end

print("list of objects:")
print i, v in ipairs(obj) do
    print(i, v)
end

I would caution against being this strict though. I would maybe just throw a warning and stop the loop after the first name that doesn’t match.

1 Like
#6

Found my answer myself!

--[[
	"root" argument is known as "Folder" in my example while "namePattern" will be "object".
]]--
function sortObjects(root, namePattern)
	local children = root:GetChildren()
	local count = #children
	local sorted = {}
	
	for current = 1, count, 1 do
		local found = nil
		for _, child in pairs(children) do
			local s, number = pcall(function()
				local newName = string.gsub(child.Name, namePattern, "")
				return tonumber(newName)
			end)

			if not s or number == nil then
				error("Name does not fit pattern!")
			end
			if number == current then
				found = child
			end
		end
		
		if found ~= nil then
			sorted[current] = found
		else
			error("Objects are not sorted properly!")
		end
	end
	
	return sorted
end

It gives us perfect output:

{
        [1] = object1,
        [2] = object2,
        [3] = object3,
        [4] = object4
}

It also handles different orders and all errors!