MATLAB: How to reorder a matlab table based on a portion of variables name

reordertable

Hi,
Wondering if anyone knows how to reorder a Matlab table based on a portion of variables name (numerical ID within the variables name) when having a table with hundreds of columns (variables)
Example of table variables name:
 America_1010 America_1008 America_1001 America_1808 ...
After reorder:
 America_1001 America_1008 America_1010 America_1808 ...
Thank you in advance!

Best Answer

Doing it manually,
T = array2table(1:4,'VariableNames', {'America_1010', 'America_1008', 'America_1001', 'America_1808'}) % example table
numeric_string = regexp(string(T.Properties.VariableNames), '(\d*)', 'tokens'); % grab numeric part
numeric_value = cellfun(@(x)double(x{1}), numeric_string); % convert to double
[~, idx] = sort(numeric_value); % sort
T2 = T(:,idx) % reorder
But I'd recommend Stephen's natural sorting utilities as a way to skip sorting yourself:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/47433-natural-order-row-sort
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