I need to sort a vector of strings in R according to specific criteria. The vector contains both numeric and non-numeric entries. The criteria for sorting are:

• Non-numeric entries should be sorted in descending alphabetical order.
• Numeric entries should be sorted as follows:

  • Entries with the same alphabetic part should be ordered by their numeric part in ascending order.

  • Numeric entries should be listed after non-numeric entries but sorted correctly among themselves.

For example, given the vector:

vec <- c(“Mezclado 1”, “Sin_usar 1”, “Mezclado 3”, “Sin_usar 2”, “Mezclado 2”)

I’ve tried

sort_vector <- function(vec) {
    # Extract numeric and alphabetic parts
    extract_parts <- function(x) {
    # Extract numeric part using regex, handle cases where no numeric part is present
    num_part <- regmatches(x, regexpr("(\d+)$", x))
    num_part <- ifelse(num_part == "", NA, num_part)
    
    # Extract alphabetic part
    alpha_part <- sub("([\d]+)$", "", x)
    
    list(alpha_part = alpha_part, num_part = num_part)
    }
  
    # Apply extraction function to all entries
    parts <- lapply(vec, extract_parts)
  
    alpha_parts <- sapply(parts, `[[`, "alpha_part")
    num_parts <- sapply(parts, `[[`, "num_part")
  
    # Separate entries into numeric and non-numeric
    is_numeric <- !is.na(num_parts)
    non_numeric_entries <- vec[!is_numeric]
    numeric_entries <- vec[is_numeric]
  
    # Create data frames for sorting
    if (length(non_numeric_entries) > 0) {
    non_numeric_df <- data.frame(
      original = non_numeric_entries,
      alpha_part = alpha_parts[!is_numeric],
      stringsAsFactors = FALSE
    )
    } else {
    non_numeric_df <- data.frame(original = character(), alpha_part = character(), stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
  }
  
    if (length(numeric_entries) > 0) {
      numeric_df <- data.frame(
        original = numeric_entries,
        alpha_part = alpha_parts[is_numeric],
        num_part = as.numeric(num_parts[is_numeric]),
        stringsAsFactors = FALSE
       )
    } else {
      numeric_df <- data.frame(original = character(), alpha_part = character(), num_part = numeric(), stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
    }
  
    # Sort non-numeric entries in descending alphabetical order
    if (nrow(non_numeric_df) > 0) {
    sorted_non_numeric_df <- non_numeric_df[order(non_numeric_df$alpha_part, decreasing = TRUE), ]
    } else {
      sorted_non_numeric_df <- non_numeric_df
    }
  
  # Sort numeric entries: first by alpha part descending, then by numeric part ascending
  if (nrow(numeric_df) > 0) {
    sorted_numeric_df <- numeric_df[order(numeric_df$alpha_part, decreasing = TRUE, numeric_df$num_part), ]
  } else {
    sorted_numeric_df <- numeric_df
  }
  
  # Combine sorted data frames
  combined_df <- rbind(sorted_non_numeric_df, sorted_numeric_df)
  
  # Final sorted vector
  sorted_vector <- combined_df$original
  
  # Find indices for the sorted vector
  sorted_indices <- match(sorted_vector, vec)
  
  list(
    sorted_vector = sorted_vector,
    sorted_indices = sorted_indices
  )
}

with the resulting output:

$sorted_vector
[1] "Sin_usar 2" "Sin_usar"   "Mezclado 3" "Mezclado 2" "Mezclado 1" "Mezclado"  

$sorted_indices
[1] 4 2 3 5 1 6

The correct output should be:

Sorted Vector: “Sin_usar” “Sin_usar 2” “Mezclado”, “Mezclado 1” “Mezclado 2” “Mezclado 3”

Sorted Indices: [2 4 6 1 5 3]