Order cell array

I have this cell array http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59868217/fileList.mat. Can I sort the array with respect to the number of characters that compose the file name? Cioè is possible obtain the array like this

 'tot16/57583.raw'
 'tot16/213587.raw'
 'tot16/369571.raw'
 'tot16/681550.raw'
 'tot16/837534.raw'
 'tot16/993529.raw'
 'tot16/1149513.raw'

I obtain this list of file by this script function fileList = getAllFiles(dirName)

dirData = dir(dirName);      %# Get the data for the current directory
dirIndex = [dirData.isdir];  %# Find the index for directories
fileList = {dirData(~dirIndex).name}';  %'# Get a list of the files
if ~isempty(fileList)
  fileList = cellfun(@(x) fullfile(dirName,x),...  %# Prepend path to files
                     fileList,'UniformOutput',false);
end
subDirs = {dirData(dirIndex).name};  %# Get a list of the subdirectories
validIndex = ~ismember(subDirs,{'.','..'});  %# Find index of subdirectories
                                             %#   that are not '.' or '..'
for iDir = find(validIndex)                  %# Loop over valid subdirectories
  nextDir = fullfile(dirName,subDirs{iDir});    %# Get the subdirectory path
  fileList = [fileList; getAllFiles(nextDir)];  %# Recursively call getAllFiles
end
end

[Oleg Komarov]

'tot16/57583.raw'

'tot16/57582.raw'

Which one should come first?

Answer 1

[Geoff]

There's a couple of ways to do this... I assume you want the numbers in ascending order. This works, but relies on the stability of sort():

fileList = sort(fileList);
[~,I] = sort(cellfun(@length, fileList));
fileList = fileList(I);

The proper way to do it is:

n = cellfun(@(x) str2double(x{:}), regexp(fileList, '/(\d+)\.raw', 'tokens'));
[~, I] = sort(n);
fileList = fileList(I);

This converts the filenames to numbers, finds the sort order and rearranges the list accordingly.

[Walter Roberson]

Differing numbers of directory names, different directory name lengths (it recurses on subdirectories). You can't just convert the filenames to numbers and fit within the user's request.

OTOH it is not clear whether the number of characters in the file name is intended to include the directory names or not.

[Geoff]

I think I've provided enough for Geppo to adapt to his/her purposes, if the answer itself is not satisfactory. The solution works on the MAT file they provided, hence my suspicion that this question is actually about ordering the files based on the number in the filename.

[Geppo Batt]

fileList = sort(fileList);

[~,I] = sort(cellfun(@length, fileList));

fileList = fileList(I);

is work correctly. But the second way it's not work. return

Error using str2double (line 32)

Not enough input arguments.

[Geppo Batt]

fileList = sort(fileList);

[~,I] = sort(cellfun(@length, fileList));

fileList = fileList(I);

is work correctly. But the second way it's not work. return

Error using str2double (line 32)

Not enough input arguments.

[Geoff]

That exact code works on the exact file list you provided. Did you type it in, or did you copy and paste it from my answer?

Answer 2

[per isakson]

Try the FEX contribution sort_nat: Natural Order Sort