# Sorting Titles in Ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 24, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096 "2007-12-24T18:12:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/1 "2007-12-24T18:12:21Z")
Before I start writing this, I thought I’d see if something already exists, but I’m having trouble formulating a good google search this morning. Let’s say I have a list of, say movies. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea A Fine Madness Fanny Marooned The Man Who Came to Dinner I’d like to sort those in title order, as if they were actually Fanny Fine Madness, A Man Who Came to Dinner, The Marooned Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea In other words, leading articles should be moved to the end, and numbers should be spelled out before sorting. It seems that sorting titles like this is fairly common, so maybe this already exists in a usable form. – Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2007, 7:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/2 "2007-12-24T19:02:06Z")
On Dec 24, 2007 6:11 PM, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > In other words, leading articles should be moved to the end, and > numbers should be spelled out before sorting. You can use the Linguistics gem([http://www.deveiate.org/projects/Linguistics/](http://www.deveiate.org/projects/Linguistics/)) to convert numbers to words. I never used it, so you need probably a simple regex to extract the numbers. Leading articles can be easily removed with a regex. ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 10:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/3 "2007-12-26T10:55:45Z")
On Dec 24, 12:01 pm, Thomas W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Dec 24, 2007 6:11 PM, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > In other words, leading articles should be moved to the end, and > > numbers should be spelled out before sorting. > > You can use the Linguistics > gem([http://www.deveiate.org/projects/Linguistics/](http://www.deveiate.org/projects/Linguistics/)) to convert numbers > to words. I never used it, so you need probably a simple regex to > extract the numbers. > Leading articles can be easily removed with a regex. Simple implementation of that… # Glenn Parker’s solution to Ruby Q. #25 [1] require “num2eng” class String def title\_case # from somewhere…can’t recall gsub(/\b\w/) { $&.upcase } end def canonical\_form nums = scan(/[\d,\_]+/) unless nums.empty? nums.each { | num | sub = num.gsub(“,”,“”).to\_i.to\_english.title\_case gsub!(num, sub) } end gsub(/\A(An?|The)(.\*)/, ‘\2, \1’).strip end end titles = [ “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “A Fine Madness”, “Fanny”, “Marooned”, “The Man Who Came to Dinner”, “5 Days and 6 Nights of Fictitious Cinema” ] puts titles.map { | title | title.canonical\_form }.sort # =\> Fanny Fine Madness, A Five Days and Six Nights of Fictitious Cinema Man Who Came to Dinner, The Marooned Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Ps. Corner cases like “20, 000 Leagues …” will break, but it’s a start. 🙂 [1] [http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/135449](http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/135449) Regards, Jordan ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/4 "2007-12-26T11:01:01Z")
On Dec 26, 3:51 am, MonkeeSage [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > to words. I never used it, so you need probably a simple regex to > > # from somewhere…can’t recall > > gsub(/\b\w/) { $&.upcase } > > end > > def canonical\_form > > nums = scan(/[\d,\_]+/) > > unless nums.empty? > > nums.each { | num | > > sub = num.gsub(“,”,“”).to\_i.to\_english.title\_case > > gsub!(num, sub) > > } > > end Err…that’s silly. I meant… ``` scan(/[\d,_]+/).each { | num | sub = num.gsub(",","").to_i.to_english.title_case gsub!(num, sub) } ``` …too much eggnog this evening, heh. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 10:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/5 "2007-12-27T10:35:18Z")
On Dec 24, 2007 9:11 PM, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Before I start writing this, I thought I’d see if something already > exists, but I’m having trouble formulating a good google search this > morning. You can use my titlecase utility as a starting point: [http://zem.novylen.net/ruby/titlecase.rb](http://zem.novylen.net/ruby/titlecase.rb) martin ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/6 "2007-12-27T15:48:30Z")
On Dec 27, 2007 4:34 AM, Martin DeMello [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Dec 24, 2007 9:11 PM, Rick DeNatale [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Before I start writing this, I thought I’d see if something already > > exists, but I’m having trouble formulating a good google search this > > morning. > > You can use my titlecase utility as a starting point: > > [http://zem.novylen.net/ruby/titlecase.rb](http://zem.novylen.net/ruby/titlecase.rb) > > martin I think that capitalizing a title “properly,” whatever that means, is a separate issue. In fact I had just done some google searching on phrases like “title capitalization” and it seems that there are all kinds of different styles. I also see that ActiveSupport has a titlecase method on String which just capitalizes each word. So for my application, I think I’ll leave the title capitalization to the humans, and I’m leaning towards sorting a canonical form which moves leading articles to the end of the title, and converts numbers (I’m just now thinking about Roman numerals) to words, then lowercases everything to make the sort case insensitive. – Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/) ---
**Author:** ![rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rykkers](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rykkers)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2007, 11:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sorting-titles-in-ruby/124096/7 "2007-12-26T11:10:58Z")
On Dec 26, 3:58 am, MonkeeSage [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > numbers should be spelled out before sorting. > > > > require “num2eng” > > > > sub = num.gsub(“,”,“”).to\_i.to\_english.title\_case > > > “Marooned”, > > Fanny > > > Regards, > > Jordan What the heck…again…I meant this… ``` gsub!(num) { num.gsub(",","").to_i.to_english.title_case } ``` …friends don’t let friends drink and code!