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:

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

Or load it from jsdelivr:

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

Usage

var natsort = require('natsort');
var 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
var objArr = [
  { val: 'B' },
  { val: 'a' },
  { val: 'D' },
  { val: 'c' }
];

var sorter = natsort();

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

Examples

Find 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]

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are highly welcome.

For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.