[thelist] 1.1.2 Sorting

[MarsHall]

On Thursday, Dec 5, 2002, at 14:52 US/Central, rudy wrote:
> i'm sure there must be a better approach

The function to make each number sortable could flow like this:

1. decide the number of digits each number can contain; call this D
	if 99.99.99 is the maximum, then D = 2
	if 999.999.999 is the maximum, then D = 3

2. split/explode the input string on the periods

3. for each split element (moving left to right; most significant first)
	a. determine the string length of the current element; call this L
	b. D - L = N,
	c. append N "0"'s to the left the current element
	d. append the current element to a [new] array of the zero-padded
elements

4. unsplit/implode the array of zero-padded elements with a period


You could use these values to build an index and sort on that index.

Mars :)