natsort-esm

Javascript natural sort algorithm with unicode support.

Note

natsort-esm is an updated version of https://github.com/bubkoo/natsort/. It is a pure ESM module and cannot be imported from a CommonJS project. Node 16+ is supported.

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

npm i natsort-esm

Usage

import { natsort } from 'natsort-esm'

const someArr = [2, 5, 3, 4, 1, 'a', 'B'];
someArr.sort(natsort());
someArr.sort(natsort({ desc: true }));
someArr.sort(natsort({ insensitive: true }));

// sort with object array
const objArr = [
  { val: 'B' },
  { val: 'a' },
  { val: 'D' },
  { val: 'c' }
];

const sorter = natsort();

objArr.sort((a, b) => {
  return sorter(a.val, b.val);
});

Examples

For more examples, see the tests.

// simple numerics
['10', 9, 2, '1', '4'].sort(natsort());
// ['1',2,'4',9,'10']

// floats
[
  '10.0401',
  10.022,
  10.042,
  '10.021999'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '10.021999',
//  10.022,
//  '10.0401',
//  10.042
// ]

// float & decimal notation
[
  '10.04f',
  '10.039F',
  '10.038d',
  '10.037D'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '10.037D',
//  '10.038d',
//  '10.039F',
//  '10.04f'
// ]

// scientific notation
[
  '1.528535047e5',
  '1.528535047e7',
  '1.528535047e3'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '1.528535047e3',
//  '1.528535047e5',
//  '1.528535047e7'
// ]

// ip addresses
[
  '192.168.0.100',
  '192.168.0.1',
  '192.168.1.1'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '192.168.0.1',
//  '192.168.0.100',
//  '192.168.1.1'
// ]

// Filenames
[
  'car.mov',
  '01alpha.sgi',
  '001alpha.sgi',
  'my.string_41299.tif'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '001alpha.sgi',
//  '01alpha.sgi',
//  'car.mov',
//  'my.string_41299.tif'
// ]

// dates
[
  '10/12/2008',
  '10/11/2008',
  '10/11/2007',
  '10/12/2007'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '10/11/2007',
//  '10/12/2007',
//  '10/11/2008',
//  '10/12/2008'
// ]

// money
[
  '$10002.00',
  '$10001.02',
  '$10001.01'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '$10001.01',
//  '$10001.02',
//  '$10002.00'
// ]

// versions
[
  '1.0.2',
  '1.0.1',
  '1.0.0',
  '1.0.9'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '1.0.0',
//  '1.0.1',
//  '1.0.2',
//  '1.0.9'
// ]

// movie titles
[
  '1 Title - The Big Lebowski',
  '1 Title - Gattaca',
  '1 Title - Last Picture Show'
].sort(natsort());
// [
//  '1 Title - Gattaca',
//  '1 Title - Last Picture Show',
//  '1 Title - The Big Lebowski'
// ]

// by default - case-sensitive sorting
['a', 'B'].sort(natsort());
// ['B', 'a']

// enable case-insensitive sorting
['a', 'B'].sort(natsort({ insensitive: true }));
// ['a', 'B']

// desc
[4, 2, 3, 5, 1].sort(natsort({ desc: true }));
//[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]