Sorting a Cell Array

This function will sort a cell array even if it is mixed.

Description

This function sorts a cell array, even if it contains character strings and numeric values (i.e. mixed). The only restriction is that it assumes that each column contains either numeric values or character strings, not both. It sorts the rows in ascending order. Note that it allows more than one column to be sorted according to the priority input by the user.

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.3 (R2006b)

[Alejandro Endo]

great useful function. Thanks for writing it, it saved me some time

[Fabio Lamanna]

FANTASTIC VERY VERY USEFUL!!!

[vasilis papadourakis]

thank you very much , great function!!

[Omar Mukhtar]

 

[Florian Wamser]

does exactly what I need; thank you

[J Ahmed]

Works well for sorting in one dimension. Produces errors in you try to order with two or more dimensions. TO fix this, edit line 77 so that it reads:
X = sortcell(X, col,MODE);

Also, if two dimensions are used, the order is not preserved from the first sort to the second, which is very confusing.

[P. V.A.]

Thanks a lot, you save my life! :)

[Lars Christensen]

Just what I was looking for. Thank you.

[T S]

Thanks

[Sachin Singh]

 

[Jack B.]

Great. Thanks !

[Sachin Singh]

Folks I tried following to re arrange the data in desending way.
NewCellArray={};
for i = 1: length(SortedData)
    NewCellArray(k,:) = SortedData(length(SortedData)+1-i,:);
    k=k+1;
end

[jayesh]

 i have
m=100;
for m=1:100;
  for k1=1:1:22
         filearray(m,k1)=filename(k1);
end
end
here k1 is filename of image so total Nfiles are 100
then
 for i=1:1:Nfiles
             if(A(i)<15.8)
                 for k1=1:1:22
                    filename(k1)=filearray(i,k1);
                 end
                  imshow(filename);
                 disp(A(i));
                
          end
 end
A(i)is the value which is corresponding to the file name i want to sort filename with respect to A(i)
what i can do
above code show it in serial that means from 1 to 100 without sorting

[Leila]

Great, it worked. Thanks, it saved me a lot of time!

[Simon Cichosz]

Perfect

[Bob Hamans]

Would there be an easy way of getting the overall permutation vector for a multidimensional sort? For one dimension it is easy (just return ix defined at line 108) but when using multiple dimension only the last value of ix is returned. I was thinking to implement something like ix(ix) but that of course does not work. Suggestions welcome!

[Bob Hamans]

Solved for now. Maybe I will update this function at a future time point to implement the above. For now:

[data, ixa] = sortcell(data, 11);
[data, ixb] = sortcell(data, 12);
[data, ixc] = sortcell(data, 1);
[data, ixd] = sortcell(data, 5);
ix=ixa(ixb(ixc(ixd)));

Desired would be:
[data, ix] = sortcell(data, [11 12 1 5]);

[Bob Hamans]

Correct that! The last line should read:
 ix = ixin(ix);

[Jessica]

Just a note to anyone who wanted to use this for the same purpose as me.

If you have a cell array of strings, but want to sort by a column that contains numeric values as class string (i.e.

'0.50'
'1.15'
'10.2'
'100'
'20')

sort is notorious for treating strings a character at a time. So, if I used this function on the above vector, 20 would be sorted after 100 on account of the character 1 coming before 2.

I understand that this function would work wonderfully if that entire column was a number instead of a string containing a number, but depending on the application it may not be possible to force the class to double. In my case, I don't know if that column is going to contain strings or numbers until I need to sort it, so I ended up going my own route.

Very useful program though, thanks for sharing on FEX!