Sorting Modes

Files in a directory window are listed in descending columns. They are always sorted. This section tells how to control
the sorting mode.

Defaults


The default sorting mode is to sort by file type, then alphabetically. That is, all directories are listed first, then all regular files, then all symlinks. Within each group, they are alphabetical.

  X11 MacOS
rotate sort order altY ^Y


With the raw Sort command, Interrogator will rotate among three modes:
- Sort by modify time
- Sort AlphaNumerically
- Sort by Type, then AlphaNumerically (the default again)

Sorting by type is the default for Microsoft Windows. The AlphaNumerically sort is case insensitive and sorts numbers numerically, but read on if you want something different.


Sorting by modify time is handy because the files you most recently worked on tend to float to the top-left, so you can find them easily. If you also color by age, it looks nice, too.

Other Sort Criteria


You can choose which criteria to use by using preflags to the Sort command. Here are some of the more useful ones (consult altU altI, or ^U ^I, in the program itself for the latest list):

  X11 MacOS
AlphaNumerically altN altY ^N ^Y
Alphabetically altL altY ^L ^Y
Ascii sort order altB altY ^B ^Y
Suffix altX altY ^X ^Y
Modify time altM altY ^M ^Y
Type altP altY ^P ^Y
Size altS altY ^S ^Y




There are three different alphabetical sort criteria. Alphabetical is a case-insensitive sort. You can get the traditional Unix ls behavior by using ascii-sort order.


AlphaNumerical sorting treats strings of digits differently - the entire sequence of consecutive digits is considered a number and is compared that way. This way, you don't have 10 coming before 9 (because 1 comes before 9), or 64 coming before 8 (because 6 comes before 8). Periods, commas, plus and minus signs, and other punctuation are treated as regular characters, therefore -2 comes after -1, and 4.03 comes after 4.2.

Sort by Suffix considers the suffix (sometimes called the extension) to be anything that follows the last period in the file's name. If there are no periods, the suffix is empty and sorts before all others. Therefore, daglue.tar.gz comes before daglue.html, and daglue comes before both of those. The sorting is case-insensitive.


Mixing Criteria


You may have noticed, if you played around with it, that sorting by Type doesn't always sort the same way within the types. That is, the Regular files may or may not be sorted alphabetically. In fact, they are sorted by whatever the previous sort criteria was: modify time, suffix, alphabetical, whatever.

In other words, if you want to sort by Suffix, and then by Modify Time, you would type altM altY altX altY. Think of it as a deck of cards: if you sort them by number, and then sort them into Red and Black piles, each red and black pile will still be sorted by number.

A faster way is to combine them in the same command - but remember to reverse the order. That is:
altM altY altX altY = altX altM altY
sort by time, sort by suffix = sort by suffix, and then within that, time

Interrogator remembers the last four sort criteria. This is almost always sufficient. The oldest criteria of course only make a difference if the previous criteria is equivocal; that is, if it cannot decide which of two files comes first. As soon as you choose an unequivocal sort criteria, any previous sort criteria become irrelevant.

For instance, let's say you sort by Suffix, and then sort by Ascii order. The Suffix sorting has no effect. No two files ever have the same Ascii spelling. Never will the Suffix ordering have any effect.

Let's say you then choose Modify Time sorting. Again, the new sort order heavily dominates, although, if two files have a date within the same second, the Ascii spelling sort order will then take effect among files modified within the same second.

This table shows which sort criteria are equivocal, and how equivocal.

Sort Criteria and Equivocality

  criteria how
Often Equivocal P tyPe
X suffiX
all dirs grouped, all regulars grouped
files with same suffix
Rarely Equivocal L aLphabetical
N alphaNumerical
M, H, A times
S size
A=a (not equivocal on case insensitive volumes)
J3=J03
granularity of one second
files of same size
Never Equivocal B ascii files never have the same name

Documentation > Directory Window > Sorting        

                     

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