Sorting a table with numbers/letters numerically

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#1

I have a table in my code that looks like this:

local tbl = {"Flashlight1", "Apple2", "ZSlot8", "Zslot4", "Zslot7", "Zslot6", "Zslot5", "Zslot3", "Zslot9"}

I want to sort it in this way with table.sort

Would it work if i did it as if it was all numbers and no text and used tonumber()
And if an entry did not have a number, could it go to the beginning?

1 Like
#2

Not sure what you mean.

Anyway, you can sort based on any ordering you desire. Here’s how you can sort based on the number at the end:

table.sort(tbl, function(a, b)
    local na, nb = a:match("%d+$"), b:match("%d+$")
    return na < nb
end)

%d matches digits, %d+ matches 1 or more digits, and $ forces it to end with 1 or more digits.

#3

i dont believe this works with 2 digit numbers (when it ends with 10, i think it gets 0 and it goes to start of array)

#4

Whoops you’re right, it needs to convert the strings to numbers before comparing, just pass the output of each match call to tonumber.

#5

So tonumber(a):match() and tonumber(b):match()?

#6

No. That’d be like
local result1 = tonumber(a)
local result2 = result1:match()

Since result1 is a number, there is no match method. match is a string method, not a number method.

Try

table.sort(tbl, function(a, b)
    local na, nb = tonumber(a:match("%d+$")), tonumber(b:match("%d+$"))
    return na < nb
end)
#7

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