VanguardLH,

Is this 2nd list what you expected for sort order for the
filenames shown in Windows Explorer?

Yes. Or any sorting method where all the same symbols are grouped together
(preferrably in 0...9 and a...z order ofcourse). I would not even too much
mind if the group with the minus signs would appear *after* all the digits
(mind you, sorting a list containing "+", "-" and digit symbols the ASCII
way would not really be intuitive either. :-) )

Perhaps you have Windows Explorer configured to sort by
filetype rather than by filename.

Same kind of thought here. I've had Explorer open in details view and
removed all but the filename column and refreshed. Nothing changed to the
sorted order of the filenames.

Did sorting work when you used ALL signed numerical values
(+ for positive values, - for negative values) instead of just adding
a hyphen to the negative numerical values?

Yes, but not for the good reason: "-32" comes, ASCII wise, after "+32". But
if we (again) ignore the hypen it still stays true: "30" comes, ASCII wise,
after "+30"

As a test I changed one of the "+00" values (of the "+32"/"-32" column) into
"000". File Explorer than shows the values starting with the "+" symbol
first, than the "000", and only than the "-32" values -- which, when you
disregard the minus signs, is logical order. However, if I than change one
of the other "+00" combinations to "-00" (its value doesn't change) than it
gets put between the last "+32" but before the "000" (same as "dir /one"
does by the way).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:
VanguardLH schreef in berichtnieuws
...
I did not know what you were trying to represent with your "translated"
list of filenames and there were no example filenames containing "33".

Using only your 1st list of filenames, which we

60.00.00.32.dds
60.00.00.32.msh
60.00.00.32.nif
60.00.32.32.dds
60.00.-32.32.dds
60.00.32.32.msh
60.00.-32.32.msh
60.00.32.32.nif
60.00.-32.32.nif

I put those into a file (input.txt) and ran it through the 'sort'
program by running at the command line:

sort input.txt /o output.txt

The sorted output looked like:

60.00.-32.32.dds
60.00.-32.32.msh
60.00.-32.32.nif
60.00.00.32.dds
60.00.00.32.msh
60.00.00.32.nif
60.00.32.32.dds
60.00.32.32.msh
60.00.32.32.nif
^
|__ differentiates starting here (col 7)

Is this 2nd list what you expected for sort order for the filenames
shown in Windows Explorer? This is a simple columnar sort, so at
character position #7, the output sort order is due to ASCII order of:

"-" is before "0"
"0" is is before "3"

I think you mentioned something about extension grouping in your other
thread. Perhaps you have Windows Explorer configured to sort by
filetype rather than by filename. Make sure Windows Explorer is
configured to sort by Name and not by Type.

Did sorting work when you used ALL signed numerical values (+ for
positive values, - for negative values) instead of just adding a hyphen
to the negative numerical values? With the same column of values all
signed so the input looked like:

60.00.+00.32.dds
60.00.+00.32.msh
60.00.+00.32.nif
60.00.+32.32.dds
60.00.-32.32.dds
60.00.+32.32.msh
60.00.-32.32.msh
60.00.+32.32.nif
60.00.-32.32.nif

the 'sort' program produced an output list of:

60.00.-32.32.dds
60.00.-32.32.msh
60.00.-32.32.nif
60.00.+00.32.dds
60.00.+00.32.msh
60.00.+00.32.nif
60.00.+32.32.dds
60.00.+32.32.msh
60.00.+32.32.nif

This has all the negative values listed before the zero values before
the positive values (columns 7-9, inclusive)

Alas, I'm not at a Windows XP machine right now to see if Windows
Explorer will sort in the same order as the 'sort' program.