为了记录，下面是Mark Byers的简单解决方案的另一个变体，类似于Walter Tross建议的解决方案，避免调用isdigit()。这不仅使它更快，而且还避免了可能发生的问题，因为与regex \d+相比，isdigit()将更多的unicode字符视为数字。

import re
from itertools import cycle

_re_digits = re.compile(r"(\d+)")


def natural_comparison_key(key):
    return tuple(
        int(part) if is_digit else part
        for part, is_digit in zip(_re_digits.split(key), cycle((False, True)))
    )

基于这里的答案，我写了一个natural_sorted函数，它的行为类似于内置函数的排序:

# Copyright (C) 2018, Benjamin Drung <bdrung@posteo.de>
#
# Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
# purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
# copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
#
# THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
# WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
# MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
# ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
# WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
# ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
# OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

import re

def natural_sorted(iterable, key=None, reverse=False):
    """Return a new naturally sorted list from the items in *iterable*.

    The returned list is in natural sort order. The string is ordered
    lexicographically (using the Unicode code point number to order individual
    characters), except that multi-digit numbers are ordered as a single
    character.

    Has two optional arguments which must be specified as keyword arguments.

    *key* specifies a function of one argument that is used to extract a
    comparison key from each list element: ``key=str.lower``.  The default value
    is ``None`` (compare the elements directly).

    *reverse* is a boolean value.  If set to ``True``, then the list elements are
    sorted as if each comparison were reversed.

    The :func:`natural_sorted` function is guaranteed to be stable. A sort is
    stable if it guarantees not to change the relative order of elements that
    compare equal --- this is helpful for sorting in multiple passes (for
    example, sort by department, then by salary grade).
    """
    prog = re.compile(r"(\d+)")

    def alphanum_key(element):
        """Split given key in list of strings and digits"""
        return [int(c) if c.isdigit() else c for c in prog.split(key(element)
                if key else element)]

    return sorted(iterable, key=alphanum_key, reverse=reverse)

源代码也可以在我的GitHub片段存储库: https://github.com/bdrung/snippets/blob/master/natural_sorted.py

一种选择是将字符串转换为元组，并使用展开形式http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_expanded_form_mean替换数字

这样a90就会变成("a"，90,0)而a1就会变成("a"，1)

下面是一些示例代码(这不是很有效，因为它从数字中删除前导0的方式)

alist=["something1",
    "something12",
    "something17",
    "something2",
    "something25and_then_33",
    "something25and_then_34",
    "something29",
    "beta1.1",
    "beta2.3.0",
    "beta2.33.1",
    "a001",
    "a2",
    "z002",
    "z1"]

def key(k):
    nums=set(list("0123456789"))
        chars=set(list(k))
    chars=chars-nums
    for i in range(len(k)):
        for c in chars:
            k=k.replace(c+"0",c)
    l=list(k)
    base=10
    j=0
    for i in range(len(l)-1,-1,-1):
        try:
            l[i]=int(l[i])*base**j
            j+=1
        except:
            j=0
    l=tuple(l)
    print l
    return l

print sorted(alist,key=key)

输出:

('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 1)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 10, 2)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 10, 7)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 2)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 5, 'a', 'n', 'd', '_', 't', 'h', 'e', 'n', '_', 30, 3)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 5, 'a', 'n', 'd', '_', 't', 'h', 'e', 'n', '_', 30, 4)
('s', 'o', 'm', 'e', 't', 'h', 'i', 'n', 'g', 20, 9)
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 1, '.', 1)
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 2, '.', 3, '.')
('b', 'e', 't', 'a', 2, '.', 30, 3, '.', 1)
('a', 1)
('a', 2)
('z', 2)
('z', 1)
['a001', 'a2', 'beta1.1', 'beta2.3.0', 'beta2.33.1', 'something1', 'something2', 'something12', 'something17', 'something25and_then_33', 'something25and_then_34', 'something29', 'z1', 'z002']

在PyPI上有一个名为natsort的第三方库(完全公开，我是包的作者)。对于你的情况，你可以采取以下任何一种方法:

>>> from natsort import natsorted, ns
>>> x = ['Elm11', 'Elm12', 'Elm2', 'elm0', 'elm1', 'elm10', 'elm13', 'elm9']
>>> natsorted(x, key=lambda y: y.lower())
['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']
>>> natsorted(x, alg=ns.IGNORECASE)  # or alg=ns.IC
['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']

您应该注意到natsort使用通用算法，因此它应该适用于您抛出的任何输入。如果您想了解更多关于为什么选择一个库来执行此操作而不是滚动自己的函数的详细信息，请查看natsort文档的How It Works页面，特别是特殊情况无处不在!部分。

如果需要排序键而不是排序函数，请使用以下公式之一。

>>> from natsort import natsort_keygen, ns
>>> l1 = ['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']
>>> l2 = l1[:]
>>> natsort_key1 = natsort_keygen(key=lambda y: y.lower())
>>> l1.sort(key=natsort_key1)
>>> l1
['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']
>>> natsort_key2 = natsort_keygen(alg=ns.IGNORECASE)
>>> l2.sort(key=natsort_key2)
>>> l2
['elm0', 'elm1', 'Elm2', 'elm9', 'elm10', 'Elm11', 'Elm12', 'elm13']

2020年11月更新

假设一个流行的请求/问题是“如何像Windows资源管理器那样排序?”(或者不管你的操作系统的文件系统浏览器是什么)，在natsort 7.1.0版本中，有一个叫做os_sorted的函数可以做到这一点。在Windows上，它将按照与Windows资源管理器相同的顺序进行排序，而在其他操作系统上，它应该像本地文件系统浏览器一样进行排序。

>>> from natsort import os_sorted
>>> os_sorted(list_of_paths)
# your paths sorted like your file system browser

对于那些需要排序键的人，可以使用os_sort_keygen(如果只需要默认值，也可以使用os_sort_key)。

注意:在使用此函数之前，请阅读该函数的API文档，以了解其限制以及如何获得最佳结果。

克劳狄对马克·拜尔斯的回答的改进;-)

import re

def natural_sort_key(s, _re=re.compile(r'(\d+)')):
    return [int(t) if i & 1 else t.lower() for i, t in enumerate(_re.split(s))]

...
my_naturally_sorted_list = sorted(my_list, key=natural_sort_key)

顺便说一句，也许不是每个人都记得函数参数默认值是在def时求值的

下面是马克·拜尔斯的另一个版本的回答。这个版本演示了如何传入一个属性名，该属性名将用于计算列表中的对象。

def natural_sort(l, attrib):
    convert = lambda text: int(text) if text.isdigit() else text.lower()
    alphanum_key = lambda key: [convert(c) for c in re.split('([0-9]+)', key.__dict__[attrib])]
    return sorted(l, key=alphanum_key)

results = natural_sort(albums, 'albumid')

其中albums是一个Album实例列表，albumid是一个字符串属性，名义上包含数字。