Sort on a string that may contain a number

Question

I need to write a Java Comparator class that compares Strings, however with one twist. If the two strings it is comparing are the same at the beginning and end of the strin

Answer 1

On Linux glibc provides strverscmp(), it's also available from gnulib for portability. However truly "human" sorting has lots of other quirks like "The Beatles" being sorted as "Beatles, The". There is no simple solution to this generic problem.