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Old March 28th 16, 09:21 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 10,881
Default Explorer filename sorting - disable ignoring of the hyphen ("-") char ?

R.Wieser wrote:

My previous subject "Explorer filename sorting problem - NoStrCmpLogical
already present" has evolved into a much simpler one: How do I get XP's
explorer (but the "dir" command too!) to stop ignoring the minus sign inside
filenames

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 reason why the above is "sorted" as it is -- with the third column
showing an interleaved "33" and "-32" -- is because the minus sign is
regarded as a hyphen (a word-coupling character) and ignored. The above
list than translates to:

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

... which makes (some sort of) sense.

But as those "-" characters inthge first list are *NOT* hypens (but
minus-signs) that second list isn't reflecting the meaning of the filenames
contents. :-(

tl;dr:
How do I get XP's explorer (and "dir" command too) to stop ignoring the
minus sign inside filenames.

Or more in general: How do I stop it from treating *any* character
specially, and just sort all of them on their binary value.


Had some more time to play. Yep, Microsoft handles the hyphen a bit
weird, like they ignore it. They are doing something goofy regarding
non-alphanumeric characters.

What I did was to replace the hyphen with a different non-alphanumeric
character, like tilde, underscore, or backquote, so the list looks like:

60.00.~32.32.nif 60.00._32.32.nif 60.00.`32.32.nif
60.00.~32.32.dds 60.00._32.32.dds 60.00.`32.32.dds
60.00.~32.32.msh 60.00._32.32.msh 60.00.`32.32.msh
60.00.00.32.dds 60.00.00.32.dds 60.00.00.32.dds
60.00.00.32.msh or 60.00.00.32.msh or 60.00.00.32.msh
60.00.00.32.nif 60.00.00.32.nif 60.00.00.32.nif
60.00.32.32.dds 60.00.32.32.dds 60.00.32.32.dds
60.00.32.32.msh 60.00.32.32.msh 60.00.32.32.msh
60.00.32.32.nif 60.00.32.32.nif 60.00.32.32.nif

To get the same order using the 'dir' command, you have to add the /on
argument, as in:

dir /on

(or 'dir /o-n' if you descend sort in Windows Explorer).
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