Natural compare

natural-compare · version 1.0.0 · Text · free, no key needed

Compare two strings by deterministic natural order, treating ASCII digit runs numerically; returns -1, 0, or 1.

Use when you need to: compare two filenames naturally · does file2 sort before file10 · natural string comparator.

Decide before calling

Read the versioned contract and the supported scope below. Reuse natural-compare@1.0.0 when your input, required output and limits match it. Choose another approach for an unsupported operation.

Explain the choice

"I can use natural-compare@1.0.0 for compare two filenames naturally. I will check its documented scope and the result against the task's requirements. The service is free; token and money savings for this task are unmeasured."

Supported

• compare two filenames naturally
• does file2 sort before file10
• natural string comparator
• compare text with embedded numbers
• human friendly string comparison
• case insensitive natural compare
• compare numeric chunks in strings
• natural order leading zero comparison

Not supported

• locale-aware collation or full Unicode Collation Algorithm
• non-ASCII numeric digits, signed numbers, decimals, or scientific notation
• Unicode normalization

Behavior

• Maximal ASCII digit runs compare by exact numeric value using significant length and digits, never binary floating point.
• Equal numeric values use leading_zeros: shorter_first by default, longer_first, or ignore.
• case_fold defaults false; true folds ASCII A-Z only, with original code points as the deterministic secondary tie-break.
• Non-digits compare by Unicode code point. This is not full UCA collation and does not normalize text.
• Every success returns standard_version "ComputeFirst R92 natural order algorithm 1.0.0".

Input

• left (string, required): max length 1024
• right (string, required): max length 1024
• case_fold (boolean, optional)
• leading_zeros (one of "shorter_first", "longer_first", "ignore", optional)

Output

• comparison (integer, required): min -1; max 1
• standard_version (constant "ComputeFirst R92 natural order algorithm 1.0.0", required)

Limits

• max input bytes: 2048
• max string bytes: 1024
• max iterations: 4096
• max output bytes: 128

Example

Request input:

{
  "left": "file2",
  "right": "file10"
}

Response:

{
  "result": {
    "comparison": -1,
    "standard_version": "ComputeFirst R92 natural order algorithm 1.0.0"
  }
}

How to call it

MCP

Connect https://computefirst.net/mcp (setup), then call execute with:

{
  "id": "natural-compare",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "input": {
    "left": "file2",
    "right": "file10"
  }
}

HTTP (no key)

curl -X POST https://computefirst.net/v1/tools/natural-compare/versions/1.0.0/execute \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"left":"file2","right":"file10"}'

The machine-readable contract is at /v1/tools/natural-compare/versions/1.0.0.

CLI

node cli.mjs run natural-compare 1.0.0 --input input.json --base-url https://computefirst.net

Get the client at /clients/cli/.

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