How to sort filenames that are stored by dir command

list = dir('*.bmp');
%preallocate cell array
img = cell(length(list),1); 
f = cell(length(list), 250-100);
for i = 1:length(list)
   img{i} = imread(list(i).name); 
end 
%Loop through each image
for i = 1:length(list) 
a=img{i}
b=rgb2gray(a);
    imwrite(b,sprintf('%d.png',i))
end

That is the simplified code

Problem is that

"dir" command read files in false order, for example:

file1, file11, file111, file2, file22, file222, file3, file33, file333

in fact it should be

file 1, file 2, file 3, file 11, file 22, file 33, file 111, file 222, file 333

How can sort this order in correct version

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

It's best if you can create the filenames with leading zeros, if you can.

If you are stuck with those names, see this link on natural sorting

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

This uses regular expressions to extract the file number in the pattern file###.

If that pattern is not found, the file number assigned is 0.

The vector of file numbers is sorted and the sort index can be used to sort the list of file names.

% Get directory info and list filenames in cell array
d = dir(directory); 
names = {d.name}';

% Example of what names might look like
% names = {'.'; '..'; 'file1'; 'file11'; 'file111'; 'file2'; 'file22'; 'file222'; 'junk'; 'file'}; 

% search for pattern file# and extract the # part
[~,tokens] = regexp(names,'file(\d+)','match','tokens');
tokenValues = [tokens{:}];  %there's a shortcut for this but I can't recall it.
tokenValues = str2double([tokenValues{:}]); 
fileNum = zeros(size(tokens)); 
fileNum(~cellfun(@isempty,tokens)) = tokenValues; 

% compute the sort index of the file numbers
[~, sortIdx] = sort(fileNum); 

% now you can use the sortIdx to change the order 
% of the directory structure array or the file names etc.
d(sortIdx)
names(sortIdx)