How to sort multiple text files by name in a struct

Hi all,

I have a series of txt files which are read with dir as a structure but the sorting in like this:

'1-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'1-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'1-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jan-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jul-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jun-16.fullfeed'
'1-Mar-16.fullfeed'
'1-May-16.fullfeed'
'1-Oct-16.fullfeed'
'1-Sep-16.fullfeed'
'10-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'10-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'10-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jan-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jul-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jun-16.fullfeed'
'10-Mar-16.fullfeed'
'10-May-16.fullfeed'
'10-Sep-16.fullfeed'
'11-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'11-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'11-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'11-Jan-16.fullfeed'

How can I sort them to the correct date order?

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

This will do it:

% Define the cell array of filenames.
caFileNames = {...
'1-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'1-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'1-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jan-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jul-16.fullfeed'
'1-Jun-16.fullfeed'
'1-Mar-16.fullfeed'
'1-May-16.fullfeed'
'1-Oct-16.fullfeed'
'1-Sep-16.fullfeed'
'10-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'10-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'10-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jan-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jul-16.fullfeed'
'10-Jun-16.fullfeed'
'10-Mar-16.fullfeed'
'10-May-16.fullfeed'
'10-Sep-16.fullfeed'
'11-Apr-16.fullfeed'
'11-Aug-16.fullfeed'
'11-Feb-16.fullfeed'
'11-Jan-16.fullfeed'}
months = {'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul',  'Aug',  'Sep',  'Oct',  'Nov',  'Dec'};
daysPerMonth = [31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31];
% Turn each filename into a day of the century.
for k = 1 : length(caFileNames)
  % Split filename apart into pieces.
  theseWords = strsplit(caFileNames{k}, '-');
  % Determine what month number it is.
  [ia, monthNumber] = ismember(theseWords{2}, months);
  % See what day of the current year it is.
  if monthNumber == 1
    dayOfYear = str2double(theseWords{1});
  else
    dayOfYear = sum(daysPerMonth(1:monthNumber-1)) + str2double(theseWords{1});
  end
  % Determine what day of the century it is.
  dayOfCentury(k) = str2double(theseWords{3}(1:2)) * 356 + dayOfYear;
end
[sortedDays, sortOrder] = sort(dayOfCentury, 'ascend');
% Get the final sorted cell array
new_ca = caFileNames(sortOrder)

I bet Stephen Cobeldick would change his program to handle that if you contact him.

http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2014/12/05/natural-order-sorting/

[aggelos]

Hi and thank you for your answer.

It seems that the for loop is just splitting the last file name and not looping thought the whole set.

I read that loop for cell arrays is looping through columns and not rows