Sorting a list of strings

Problem

• Windows: Director MX 2004 and earlier
• Mac: ???

Sorting a list of strings with Lingo is a bit problematic as the following example demonstrates:

-- Lingo-Syntax
myList = ["bbb","-ccc","aaa"]
myList.sort()
put myList
-- ["aaa", "bbb", "-ccc"]

The result is wrong.
The expected result would have been ["-ccc", "aaa", "bbb"],
because charToNum("-") < charToNum("a")

Solution

Create a Flash Array Object from the list of strings and sort it:

-- Lingo-Syntax
myList = ["bbb","-ccc","aaa"]
myList = convert(#list, convert(#flashObjectArray, myList).sort())
put myList
-- ["-ccc", "aaa", "bbb"]