What the heck? Contents of objects NOT alphabetical!??

Has it always been this way?

Let's say you have 6 objects in the contents of an object rezzed in world.
The objects are named:

1,11,2,object1,object11,object2

The poll asks how it should be sorted.

Here's how it really sorts in your Object's contents:

1
2
11
object1
object2
object11

I saw this, gasped, swore.

It's not alphabetical order.

Linden Lab would have to intentionally be adding an extra level of complexity to their sorting algorithms to put them this way.

This is really ridiculous! Any Computer Science 101 teaches sorting lists of strings in alphabetical numbers, and coders are tought explicitly to make sure they realize this. Phone books and almost any string-based directory sorts this way, so does practically everything in the internet.

And SL is working the opposite way.

This is silly. I want to know if this is a recent thing so I can bug report it, or if it's an old standard that I need to lobby to change.

Just to be picky (I'm English) the word is "alphanumerical" not alphabetical.

sorry (pet peeve assuaged) *sigh*

Because SL is a game, and not a platform, and to LL all that matters are the little people who sit in clubs and watch themselves being automatically animated, with their arms crossed, occasionally extending a finger to trigger a "w00t" or "^^HoWlZ^^" gesture.

That's standard string ordering procedure, as it doesn't view them as numbers, it sees the entire object name as a string. Therefore, as a string, "11" comes before "2". In strings, you compare one character in the sequence to the other strings to order, versus looking at the numeric value of the whole.

In my RL job's database, we have a varchar(10) field (a string) that is mostly numbers, but sometimes two numbers, written as "1/2" or "001", "002"... a trick we do is this:

select equipment_number, etc from table_name order by abs(equipment_number);

In MySQL and Oracle, the absolute value function can be used as a cheat to convert the three numbers listed above to "1", "1", and "2". Using it on the order clause still returns the equipment_number field as it appears in the database, however, sorts it numerically.

Regards,

-Flip

Flip,

How then do you explain:

Object1,
Object2,
Object11

?

Ah, I misread the original post, sorry about that. Are they really doing this? That's a hell of a lot of extra code to try to pull that sort of ordering off...and pretty much a waste of time, heh.

Regards,

-Flip

Considering benchmarks for loop-times that I've done, I wonder if this doesn't contribute to a significant part of the lag you get updating items' inventories?

I mean, this changes the runtime of a single string comparison in the Object's contents from O(2N) to O(N^2), doesn't it? (Where N = string length) In the context of a loop where you are sorting inventory items, even at binary searches, we're talking O((X log X)*N^2) ... (X = number of items in contents)

Are you sure they're even sorted at all, they could simply be in order of insertion, i mean, things are autonumbered when you drop in duplicates right?

They're definitely sorted, and if Hiro's comments above are correct, then there's extra processing going on. However, Hiro, I think they'd probably do something a little less intensive than that, like:

for(x = string length (item name); x>=0; x--) {
if(isnumeric(substring(item name, x, 1))) {
end_num_string = concat (substring(item name, x, 1), end_num_string);
} else {
x = -1;
}
}

Then by the end_num_string of each item. That way you only parse numbers at the end after doing an initial sort by alphas without numerics.

Either way, its very silly and inefficient, hehehe.

Regards,

-Flip

..Call me dumb here.. But why is it bad that 11 comes after 2? O.o

It's nonstandard when dealing with strings. I'm sure you wouldn't ask why it's bad if 'aa' were to come after 'b'. This is the same issue.

it's like "apple" coming before "zone" because apple is longer.

The overwhelming standard in computer applications is that any alphanumeric sort is done 1 letter / number at a time. It means that in order for Linden Lab to have achieved this sorting, they had to basically write extra code to do so, and anyone wanting to resort it has to write extra code.

It's not unheard of though. Windows does this with filenames displayed in Explorer. I just created six files: 1.txt, 2.txt, 11.txt, object1.txt, object2.txt, and object11.txt. They were sorted alphanumerically like that.

Personally I prefer it this way because it makes more sense.

This:

1.txt
11.txt
2.txt
object1.txt
object11.txt
object2.txt

sucks IMHO.

Whether or not this introduces more lag is a seperate issue.

HP

It's not alphanumerically if it goes out of alphanumeric order. There needs to be some new phrase for it, like, "mixed up", or "out of order" or "crazy stupid".

Anyway, I tried out the same experiment, and windows does it the same way.

Disappointed.

What do you think will get the supreme court to reverse this one, there, Hiro? I bet we can find something in the First Amendment for it, yes?

Given the following lists of script names:

My Awesome Script v1    My Awesome Script v1
My Awesome Script v2    My Awesome Script v10
My Awesome Script v3    My Awesome Script v11
My Awesome Script v4    My Awesome Script v12
My Awesome Script v5    My Awesome Script v13
My Awesome Script v6    My Awesome Script v14
My Awesome Script v7    My Awesome Script v15
My Awesome Script v8    My Awesome Script v16
My Awesome Script v9    My Awesome Script v17
My Awesome Script v10   My Awesome Script v18
My Awesome Script v11   My Awesome Script v19
My Awesome Script v12   My Awesome Script v2
My Awesome Script v13   My Awesome Script v20
My Awesome Script v14   My Awesome Script v21
My Awesome Script v15   My Awesome Script v22
My Awesome Script v16   My Awesome Script v23
My Awesome Script v17   My Awesome Script v24
My Awesome Script v18   My Awesome Script v25
My Awesome Script v19   My Awesome Script v26
My Awesome Script v20   My Awesome Script v27
My Awesome Script v21   My Awesome Script v28
My Awesome Script v22   My Awesome Script v29
My Awesome Script v23   My Awesome Script v3
My Awesome Script v24   My Awesome Script v30
My Awesome Script v25   My Awesome Script v4
My Awesome Script v26   My Awesome Script v5
My Awesome Script v27   My Awesome Script v6
My Awesome Script v28   My Awesome Script v7
My Awesome Script v29   My Awesome Script v8
My Awesome Script v30   My Awesome Script v9

The one on the right is the one that's mixed-up, out of order, and crazy stupid.

I demand that it be made federal law that all alphanumeric lists be sorted as shown on the left. Capital punishment for those who don't comply.

HP

Speaking from a techie standpoint (pardon me if I suddenly sound like I'm speaking a foreign languate)...

Seems to me that they may have the sorting code page in the datbase, or used a high-null cardinality rule. Shorter strings are sorting higher on the list than longer strings. If they're sorting via a letter-by-letter routine, then the extra digits in the longer string would be compared to 'null', and high-null cardinality would give the nod to the shorter string.

In other words.....
1
beats
11

because it is one digit shorter.


- Newfie

I'm not sure what the problem is. For inventories of objects, something human-logical (the number 11 is larger and so comes after 1) sorting is almost nessesary - since that inventory is what your run-of-the mill user sees and sometimes has to interact with.

Now, if it's doing the same thing when we use llListSortList... well, then it's a problem.

just tried and got this result:

a1aa
a2aa
a5aa
a22a

So it's not anything dealing with size of string alone

I wonder if this all has anything to do with the feeling I have that I lag a lot more when my inventory is open?


Kyushu

This may explain something. I'm not sure what. But it must have some relevance to my life. I will investigate further and report back my findings.


Much later...


okay, i just tried these random words:


for
starax
command
statosky
murder
beelzebub
demons
of


and it gave me this:

beelzebub
command
demons
for
murder
of
starax
statosky



I'm not happy with this sorting method at all. I would like a new one please.

After investigating Starax's issue..i got this

Demons
Of
Beelzebub
Command
For
Starax
Statosky
Murder

we have the obj1, 11, 111, 2, 21, 3 ...etc order because computers are stupid. presumabely, LL wrote a script to make the computer smarter so that regular humans don't have to reorient their brain for the stupid computer.

then people who already reoriented their brain for the computer started to cry because now they see the world with the eyes of a machine.

thanks LL for making it easier to look through my inventory in a logical HUMAN manner.

filed under OMGreSMODS!

filed under zOMG tekki wikki!
When are you going to show me firechick's tits, jaujau?

Wow, that's weird, cause I got

starax
statosky
command
demons
of
murder
for
beelzebub