Alphabetizing procedure?

[jessec]

Does anyone know of a handy procedure that will take an array of strings, and alphabetize them and store them into a new output variable? I know it can't be that complicated, and I tried googling to find something, but came up with nada. Anybody got one handy?

[naughty]

since the dawn of computing this function has existed and been known as sort

take a look at the sort command in your MEL command reference ....

:nathaN

[jessec]

Ok, yeah, there is the sort function, but let me ask again, does anyone know a quick code to alphabetize a list?

The sort command works, but basically, I have a list of influence objects I need to alphabetize, but I also want to re-order the corresponding list of weight values for that influence object.

Thanks.

[naughty]

huh..?!

maybe if you post an (abridged!) example list of what you have, and an example of how you would LIKE it "alphabetized", that would help explain what you are asking for, cos I'm certainly none the wiser..!

[failure]

What's your final goal here?

[jessec]

Ok, here's what's going on.

Basically, I am exporting skin wieghts to a text file. So, right now, it is exporting the list of skin weight values for each vertex, in heirarchical order of the joints, and then in the order which I added any influence objects.

This becomes problematic, as if I want to unbind the skin and rebind it, add influences and then import these weights, I have to make sure to add the influence objects in the same order as the first time.

So, I want to have the option of organizing the skin weight data for each vertex alphabetically, instead of hierarchically. So, I need an alphabetizing procedure, longhand, so that at the same time that I have it sort through the joints and influence objects and arrange them alphabetically, I can also have it arrange the corresponding joint/influence number in the same order...

Get it?

So, basically just a long hand procedure to alphabetize a list of joints/influences, and at the same time I can reorder the corresponding weight value for that joint/influence.

Yah?

[failure]

I don' t see a problem:

• put names in the array
• sort the array
• walk thru array, writing data to file