Javascript natural sort algorithm with unicode support.

TL;DR

Most sort implementations utilizing a fast sort algorithm but they all lack the ability to perform a "natural sort". That is, sorting an array of dates, numeric string, software version numbers, etc. and getting the "natural" a.k.a. "expected" ordering on the results.

This algorithm was deeply inspired from this blog post of Jim Palmer.

The project name "natsort" was inspired from Python's natsort().

Features

• Numeric support
• Unicode support
• Dates sorting support
• Empty strings are always come first
• Case-Insensitive sorting
• Desc sorting

Install

You can get it on npm.

$ npm install natsort --save

If you're not into package management, just download a ZIP file.

Setup

First, include the script located on the dist folder:

1<script src="dist//natsort.min.js"></script>

Or load it from jsdelivr:

1<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/natsort@<version>/index.min.js"></script>
2<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/natsort@latest/index.min.js"></script>

Usage

1var natsort = require('natsort');
2var someArr = [2, 5, 3, 4, 1, 'a', 'B'];
3
4someArr.sort(natsort());
5someArr.sort(natsort({ desc: true }));
6someArr.sort(natsort({ insensitive: true }));
7
8// sort with object array
9var objArr = [
10  { val: 'B' },
11  { val: 'a' },
12  { val: 'D' },
13  { val: 'c' }
14];
15
16var sorter = natsort();
17
18objArr.sort(function(a, b) {
19  return sorter(a.val, b.val);
20});

Examples

Find more examples see the tests.

1// simple numerics
2['10', 9, 2, '1', '4'].sort(natsort());
3// ['1',2,'4',9,'10']
4
5// floats
6[
7  '10.0401',
8  10.022,
9  10.042,
10  '10.021999'
11].sort(natsort());
12// [
13//  '10.021999',
14//  10.022,
15//  '10.0401',
16//  10.042
17// ]
18
19// float & decimal notation
20[
21  '10.04f',
22  '10.039F',
23  '10.038d',
24  '10.037D'
25].sort(natsort());
26// [
27//  '10.037D',
28//  '10.038d',
29//  '10.039F',
30//  '10.04f'
31// ]
32
33// scientific notation
34[
35  '1.528535047e5',
36  '1.528535047e7',
37  '1.528535047e3'
38].sort(natsort());
39// [
40//  '1.528535047e3',
41//  '1.528535047e5',
42//  '1.528535047e7'
43// ]
44
45// ip addresses
46[
47  '192.168.0.100',
48  '192.168.0.1',
49  '192.168.1.1'
50].sort(natsort());
51// [
52//  '192.168.0.1',
53//  '192.168.0.100',
54//  '192.168.1.1'
55// ]
56
57// Filenames
58[
59  'car.mov',
60  '01alpha.sgi',
61  '001alpha.sgi',
62  'my.string_41299.tif'
63].sort(natsort());
64// [
65//  '001alpha.sgi',
66//  '01alpha.sgi',
67//  'car.mov',
68//  'my.string_41299.tif'
69// ]
70
71// dates
72[
73  '10/12/2008',
74  '10/11/2008',
75  '10/11/2007',
76  '10/12/2007'
77].sort(natsort());
78// [
79//  '10/11/2007',
80//  '10/12/2007',
81//  '10/11/2008',
82//  '10/12/2008'
83// ]
84
85// money
86[
87  '$10002.00',
88  '$10001.02',
89  '$10001.01'
90].sort(natsort());
91// [
92//  '$10001.01',
93//  '$10001.02',
94//  '$10002.00'
95// ]
96
97// versions
98[
99  '1.0.2',
100  '1.0.1',
101  '1.0.0',
102  '1.0.9'
103].sort(natsort());
104// [
105//  '1.0.0',
106//  '1.0.1',
107//  '1.0.2',
108//  '1.0.9'
109// ]
110
111// movie titles
112[
113  '1 Title - The Big Lebowski',
114  '1 Title - Gattaca',
115  '1 Title - Last Picture Show'
116].sort(natsort());
117// [
118//  '1 Title - Gattaca',
119//  '1 Title - Last Picture Show',
120//  '1 Title - The Big Lebowski'
121// ]
122
123// by default - case-sensitive sorting
124['a', 'B'].sort(natsort());
125// ['B', 'a']
126
127// enable case-insensitive sorting
128['a', 'B'].sort(natsort({ insensitive: true }));
129// ['a', 'B']
130
131// desc
132[4, 2, 3, 5, 1].sort(natsort({ desc: true }));
133//[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are highly welcome.

For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.