8 ms·

>September is the equivalent of 9, October of 10. Which comes first for natural sorting? Remember, the file modify date may not be useful here since you may hav

>September is the equivalent of 9, October of 10. Which comes first for natural sorting? Remember, the file modify date may not be useful here since you may have wrapped up the September budget on October 1st while the prior edit to the October budget may have been on September 20th. The problem is that there is no such thing as natural Yeah, but there is such a thing as "give a predictable and consistent way I can name the files so that they sort as I want everywhere" which (if different OSes don't try to be "smart") would have been to prefix them with the numeric date zero padded.

SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago
Date is already in the metadata, it doesn't need to be in the filename.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Have you ever copied a file?
  - SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago
    Yes, have you never edited the metadata? Also most filesystems these days preserve it when copied, e.g. my camera's EXFAT filesystem on an SD card gets the creation date preserved when I copy it to my PC or NAS, or between NAS & laptop later.
    - crazygringo 1y ago
      > Yes, have you never edited the metadata? I don't even know what that means. And just because some OS's copy the creation date doesn't mean all of them do. Specifically, the most popular desktop OS -- Windows -- doesn't. (And it has nothing to do with your filesystem. It's your OS.)
      - coldtea 1y ago
        >I don't even know what that means Obviously something like: touch -t 202309271530 myfile.txt
        crazygringo 1y ago
        And I'm supposed to do that manually for each of the couple hundred photos I copy...? I'm sorry if I have a hard time taking that suggestion seriously.
    - coldtea 1y ago
      >Yes, have you never edited the metadata? Is your suggestion that people edit the metadata to get the sorting they want? madness...
hakfoo 1y ago
Budget 2025-09.ods and Budget 2025-10.ods would sort reliably. The options explode infinitely if you start trying to guess what people want in terms of semantic grouping. One user might want to see "September Budget" beside "September Sales Projections" and "September Calendar", and another might want to group it with "October Budget" and "November Budget". If you have simple, stupid, but predictable tools, people can work around that, by picking naming conventions and even directory groupings that achieve what they want. The worst is when you have an enforced sort that's not what you want. I think in Windows now, even if you say "Sort by name" in the Downloads directory, it insists on sub-grouping by age. I want every version of the Foobaz spec I downloaded, and no, I don't remember if all of them were in the last 3 months!
- TuringTest 1y ago
  There is a simple criteria for ordering file names: treat sequences of characters as alphabetical, and sequences of digits as numbers. It's easy to understand and predictable; it just happens to not be based on ASCII character codes, which is a legacy technology method only ever meaningful to US developers.
- sandblast 1y ago
  You can easily disable grouping in Windows Explorer.

SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago

Date is already in the metadata, it doesn't need to be in the filename.

crazygringo 1y ago
Have you ever copied a file?
- SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago
  Yes, have you never edited the metadata? Also most filesystems these days preserve it when copied, e.g. my camera's EXFAT filesystem on an SD card gets the creation date preserved when I copy it to my PC or NAS, or between NAS & laptop later.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    > Yes, have you never edited the metadata? I don't even know what that means. And just because some OS's copy the creation date doesn't mean all of them do. Specifically, the most popular desktop OS -- Windows -- doesn't. (And it has nothing to do with your filesystem. It's your OS.)
    - coldtea 1y ago
      >I don't even know what that means Obviously something like: touch -t 202309271530 myfile.txt
      - crazygringo 1y ago
        And I'm supposed to do that manually for each of the couple hundred photos I copy...? I'm sorry if I have a hard time taking that suggestion seriously.
  - coldtea 1y ago
    >Yes, have you never edited the metadata? Is your suggestion that people edit the metadata to get the sorting they want? madness...

hakfoo 1y ago

Budget 2025-09.ods and Budget 2025-10.ods would sort reliably. The options explode infinitely if you start trying to guess what people want in terms of semantic grouping. One user might want to see "September Budget" beside "September Sales Projections" and "September Calendar", and another might want to group it with "October Budget" and "November Budget". If you have simple, stupid, but predictable tools, people can work around that, by picking naming conventions and even directory groupings that achieve what they want. The worst is when you have an enforced sort that's not what you want. I think in Windows now, even if you say "Sort by name" in the Downloads directory, it insists on sub-grouping by age. I want every version of the Foobaz spec I downloaded, and no, I don't remember if all of them were in the last 3 months!

TuringTest 1y ago
There is a simple criteria for ordering file names: treat sequences of characters as alphabetical, and sequences of digits as numbers. It's easy to understand and predictable; it just happens to not be based on ASCII character codes, which is a legacy technology method only ever meaningful to US developers.
sandblast 1y ago
You can easily disable grouping in Windows Explorer.