compare_natural

Compares two strings in natural order: runs of ASCII digits are compared by their numeric value, everything else character by character. So "frame 2" comes before "frame 10", where plain text order puts "frame 10" first.

Letters compare by code point, so case matters ("B" before "a"): lowercase both sides first for a case-insensitive order. Numbers of any length are compared exactly, without converting them to an integer, and two numbers of equal value but different zero padding ("a1" and "a01") are ordered by padding, fewest zeros first, so only identical strings compare as equal.

Import

use helpers4::string::compare_natural;

Cargo feature string (enabled by default). To compile only this module:

cargo add helpers4 --no-default-features --features string

or in Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
helpers4 = { version = "0.0.9", default-features = false, features = ["string"] }

Signature

pub fn compare_natural(a: &str, b: &str) -> Ordering

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
a	&str	The first string.
b	&str	The second string.

Returns

Ordering — How a orders against b. Usable as a comparator: names.sort_by(|a, b| compare_natural(a, b)).

Examples

use helpers4::string::compare_natural;

let mut frames = ["frame 10", "frame 2", "frame 1"];
frames.sort_by(|a, b| compare_natural(a, b));
assert_eq!(frames, ["frame 1", "frame 2", "frame 10"]);

Source

src/string/compare_natural.rs