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It feels like this algorithm could be improved though. If a number has leading zeros you probably don't want to sort it numerically.

That said the author's situation where it's numerical and different lengths seems likely rare enough that it probably isn't worth complicating things.

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The leading zero isn't an issue because it will sort correctly under both systems. The issue OP is having is that he's adding random numbers after the hhmmss section. If instead he added a delimiter before the random number the files would sort correctly under both systems as well, e.g. hhmmss_num.

Yes that's what I said:

> where it's numerical and different lengths

for me the takeaway here isn't that sorting should use some smarter/better mechanism for inferring semantic intent from filenames, but rather that sorting should not try to infer semantic intent from filenames in the first place

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