Sorting complex strings by a deliminator

Hello!

I am currenty sorting a cell array by the first column, which is made up of ID codes stored as strings. The ID's are made up of numbers and characters, separated by dashes. Here is what it looks like (only pay attention to the first column, the rest isn't the actual data):

'c1-3'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-4'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-5'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-1'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-2'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c2-11'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-4'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-7'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-2'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-9'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-8'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-10'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-6'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-3'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-5'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-1'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c3-5'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-7'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-2'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-1'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-9'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-6'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-8'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-4'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-3'	127	127	127	53	5	0

This is just my sample code, realistically I would have ID's with more values like '1-4-3-A'

I want it to each section that is separated by a dash and sort by the total value if it's a number, rather than one digit at a time. Unfortunately, the way the regular sortrows function works gives me issues when I have double digit numbers. For example, in this array, I have an issue where c2-10 and c2-11 come before c2-2 so rather than getting this:

'c1-1'	247	247	247	
'c1-2'	247	247	247	
'c1-3'	247	247	247	
'c1-4'	247	247	247	
'c1-5'	247	247	247	
'c2-1'	195	195	195	
'c2-2'	195	195	195	
'c2-3'	195	195	195	
'c2-4'	195	195	195
'c2-5'	195	195	195
'c2-6'	195	195	195
'c2-7'	195	195	195
'c2-8'	195	195	195
'c2-9'	195	195	195
'c2-10'	195	195	195
'c2-11'	195	195	195
'c3-1'	127	127	127
'c3-2'	127	127	127
'c3-3'	127	127	127
'c3-4'	127	127	127
'c3-5'	127	127	127
'c3-6'	127	127	127
'c3-7'	127	127	127
'c3-8'	127	127	127
'c3-9'	127	127	127

I get this:

'c1-1'	247	247	247
'c1-2'	247	247	247
'c1-3'	247	247	247
'c1-4'	247	247	247
'c1-5'	247	247	247
'c2-1'	195	195	195
'c2-10'	195	195	195
'c2-11'	195	195	195
'c2-2'	195	195	195
'c2-3'	195	195	195
'c2-4'	195	195	195
'c2-5'	195	195	195
'c2-6'	195	195	195
'c2-7'	195	195	195
'c2-8'	195	195	195
'c2-9'	195	195	195
'c3-1'	127	127	127
'c3-2'	127	127	127
'c3-3'	127	127	127
'c3-4'	127	127	127
'c3-5'	127	127	127
'c3-6'	127	127	127
'c3-7'	127	127	127
'c3-8'	127	127	127
'c3-9'	127	127	127

Does anyone know if a fuction exists within matlab that would sort it the way I'm looking for?

Answer 1

[Bruno Luong]

One way

c = {'c1-3'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-4'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-5'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-1'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c1-2'	247	247	247	97	0	0
'c2-11'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-4'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-7'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-2'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-9'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-8'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-10'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-6'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-3'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-5'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c2-1'	195	195	195	78	0	0
'c3-5'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-7'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-2'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-1'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-9'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-6'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-8'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-4'	127	127	127	53	5	0
'c3-3'	127	127	127	53	5	0 }

x=cellfun(@(s) textscan(s,'c%d-%d'), c(:,1),'unif', 0);
x=[x{:}];
x=reshape([x{:}],2,[])';
[~,is]=sortrows(x);
c(is,:)

[Diana Hardy]

is there a way to do this with a more general format of ID's? not all of my ID's I'll use start with a c, but they all have a few values separated by dashes. For example, another set of values I might use this app for would look like what I show below, and I would want the 1-20 group at the end rather than right after the 1-2 group

c = {'1-2-1-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-2-2-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-2-3-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-3-1-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-3-2-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-3-3-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-3-1-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-4-2-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-4-3-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-4-1-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-5-2-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-5-3-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-5-2-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-6-1-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-6-2-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     '1-6-3-a'	195	195	195	78	0	0
     ... (more rows following this pattern)
     '1-20-1-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-20-2-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0
     '1-20-3-a'	247	247	247	97	0	0