janitor.sort_naturally

janitor.sort_naturally(df: pandas.core.frame.DataFrame, column_name: str, **natsorted_kwargs) → pandas.core.frame.DataFrame[source]

Sort a DataFrame by a column using “natural” sorting.

Natural sorting is distinct from the default lexiographical sorting provided by pandas. For example, given the following list of items:

[“A1”, “A11”, “A3”, “A2”, “A10”]

lexicographical sorting would give us:

[“A1”, “A10”, “A11”, “A2”, “A3”]

By contrast, “natural” sorting would give us:

[“A1”, “A2”, “A3”, “A10”, “A11”]

This function thus provides “natural” sorting on a single column of a dataframe.

To accomplish this, we do a natural sort on the unique values that are present in the dataframe. Then, we reconstitute the entire dataframe in the naturally sorted order.

Natural sorting is provided by the Python package natsort.

All keyword arguments to natsort should be provided after the column name to sort by is provided. They are passed through to the natsorted function.

Functional usage syntax:

import pandas as pd
import janitor as jn

df = pd.DataFrame(...)

df = jn.sort_naturally(
    df=df,
    column_name='alphanumeric_column',
)

Method chaining usage syntax:

import pandas as pd
import janitor

df = pd.DataFrame(...)

df = df.sort_naturally(
    column_name='alphanumeric_column',
)
Parameters

  • df – A pandas DataFrame.

  • column_name – The column on which natural sorting should take place.

  • natsorted_kwargs – Keyword arguments to be passed to natsort’s natsorted function.

Returns

A sorted pandas DataFrame.