Django Natural Sort

A lightweight, efficient package for natural sorting in Django and Django REST Framework.

The Problem

By default, when you order strings containing numbers in Django or DRF, they're sorted lexicographically:

['1', '10', '11', '12', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9']

This is not the expected order for humans, who would expect:

['1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12']

This package solves this issue by implementing natural sorting, where numbers within strings are treated as actual numbers rather than individual characters.

Installation

pip install django-natural-sort

Usage

In Django REST Framework Views

from django_natural_sort.filters import NaturalOrderingFilter

class MyModelViewSet(viewsets.ModelViewSet):
    queryset = MyModel.objects.all()
    serializer_class = MyModelSerializer
    filter_backends = [NaturalOrderingFilter]
    ordering_fields = ['id', 'name', 'version']

This automatically applies natural sorting to any CharField, EmailField, or TextField in your model when used in ordering. Just use the standard ordering parameter:

GET /api/mymodel/?ordering=version

Features

• Efficient: Uses database ordering for non-string fields, only falls back to Python sorting when necessary
• Compatible: Works with Django 3.2+ and Django REST Framework 3.11.1+
• Lightweight: No external dependencies
• Flexible: Works with various string field types (CharField, TextField, EmailField)
• Robust: Handles edge cases like mixed types, None values, and more

How It Works

The package detects which fields in your model are string fields. When ordering by these fields, it uses a natural sorting algorithm that correctly handles numbers embedded in strings.

For non-string fields, it uses the database's built-in ordering mechanism for optimal performance.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.