natural_sorting - Sort arrays in a more human way

This is a Ruby on Rails plugin, which introduces a new method to the Array class in order to sort values in a natural way.

Installation

As a Rails Plugin

Use this to install as a plugin in a Ruby on Rails app:

$ script/plugin install git://github.com/logandk/natural_sorting.git

As a Rails Plugin (using git submodules)

Use this if you prefer the idea of being able to easily switch between using edge or a tagged version:

$ git submodule add git://github.com/logandk/natural_sorting.git vendor/plugins/natural_sorting

Usage

The default sort method will sort your array like this:

>> ["Image 1", "Image 3", "Image 11", "Image 20"].sort
=> ["Image 1", "Image 11", "Image 20", "Image 3"]

This plugin introduces the sort_natural method, which sorts your array like this:

>> ["Image 1", "Image 3", "Image 11", "Image 20"].sort_natural
=> ["Image 1", "Image 3", "Image 11", "Image 20"]

Much better.

By default, the sort_natural method is not case-sensitive, but this can be controlled like this:

>> ["apple", "flaf", "Hello world!", "Arrrrr"].sort_natural :case_sensitive => true
=> ["Arrrrr", "Hello world!", "apple", "flaf"]

Also, the plugin adds a couple of other methods. Replace the array with the sorted version:

[...].sort_natural!

Compare two strings naturally, default case_sensitive = false:

String.natcmp("hello", "world"[, :case_sensitive => true])

Credits

The natcmp method is based on the work by Alan Davies, as described in lib/core_ext/string.rb.

Copyright (c) 2008 Logan Raarup, released under the MIT license