How to reorder a matlab table based on a portion of variables name

Hi,

Wondering if anyone knows how to reorder a Matlab table based on a portion of variables name (numerical ID within the variables name) when having a table with hundreds of columns (variables)

Example of table variables name:

 America_1010 America_1008 America_1001 America_1808 ...

After reorder:

 America_1001 America_1008 America_1010 America_1808 ...

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

Doing it manually,

T = array2table(1:4,'VariableNames', {'America_1010', 'America_1008', 'America_1001', 'America_1808'}) % example table
numeric_string = regexp(string(T.Properties.VariableNames), '(\d*)', 'tokens'); % grab numeric part
numeric_value = cellfun(@(x)double(x{1}), numeric_string); % convert to double
[~, idx] = sort(numeric_value); % sort
T2 = T(:,idx) % reorder

But I'd recommend Stephen's natural sorting utilities as a way to skip sorting yourself:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/47433-natural-order-row-sort

[Robert]

Thank you so much to both of you for your suggestions and links. Your solutions work great!

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/10959-sort-nat--natural-order-sort or https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/34464-customizable-natural-order-sort