How to "naturally sort" files that end with a number (png0 to png188) via Python's natsort?

Question

I have a folder that has plots in PNGs like earthquake0, earthquake1, earthquake2, and so on. These photos are converted to GIF via moviepy but Python's sorting results to 1, 10, 100 instead of 1, 2, 3.

Here's the moviepy code

import os
os.chdir(r'path')
from moviepy.editor import *

image_list = 'exports' # folder 
my_clip = ImageSequenceClip(image_list, fps=0.75)
my_clip.write_gif('eqph_gif.gif')

I have tried adding this but Python says it can't find the folder

image_list = natsort.natsorted(image_list)

According to natsort's documentation, the function needs a sequence of file names to sort, not a folder name. — Michael Butscher, May 31 '20 at 10:00
Ok. So I need to get all the filenames by os.listdir() then natsort it right? — BallpenMan, May 31 '20 at 10:03
Natsort author here - `natsorted` is intended to be a drop-in replacement for the python built-in function `sorted`, so however you would achieve sorting with that is how you should approach sorting with `natsorted`. — SethMMorton, May 31 '20 at 19:23
You might want to write up a complete answer to both this and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62084686/moviepys-imagesequenceclip-reads-pngs-wrongly-like-0-10-100-instead-of-trad instead of leaving them answerless for future viewers? — Tom Burrows, Jun 01 '20 at 11:09

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '20 at 12:27

Solved it!

def gif():
    os.chdir(r'C:\Users\imper\Documents\new_GISfiles\earthquakesPH\exports')
    imgs = humansorted(os.listdir('.'))
    my_clip = ImageSequenceClip(imgs, fps=1.5)
    my_clip.write_videofile('eqph.mp4', fps=15)

Someone from r/learnpython pointed out that I can't just write imgs = 'exports' even if I already set up the working directory os.chdir(r'path'). https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/guabw3/the_humansorted_function_work_when_ran_in_the/

How to "naturally sort" files that end with a number (png0 to png188) via Python's natsort?

1 Answers1