Sort in R with multiple criteria (alphanumeric)

Question

l <-  c("BC321" , "BC320", "BC100" , "DA124" ,"DA174" ,"DA224", "DA33",  "DA98" )
require('gtools')
mixedsort(l)
"BC100" "BC320" "BC321" "DA33"  "DA98"  "DA124" "DA174" "DA224"

But I want "DA33" "DA98" "DA124" "DA174" "DA224" "BC100" "BC320" "BC321"

Really appreciate any help. Thank you

Sorting is on the basis of: 1. Alphabets from Z - > A (descending order) and then 2) Within the same block e.g. DA, sorting is based on number (lower to higher--ascending order). — user3001378, Apr 07 '14 at 19:28

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:26

2

Here's one way:

x <- strsplit(l, "(?<=[A-Z])(?=[0-9])", perl=TRUE) ##
v1 = sapply(x, `[[`, 1L)
v2 = as.integer(sapply(x, `[[`, 2L))
l[order(-xtfrm(v1), v2)]
# [1] "DA33"  "DA98"  "DA124" "DA174" "DA224" "BC100" "BC320" "BC321"

Check this post by Josh O'Brien for the magic happening with strsplit (marked with ##).

edited May 23 '17 at 10:26

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answered Apr 07 '14 at 19:30

Arun

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Sort in R with multiple criteria (alphanumeric)

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