Very ugly, but works: UnsortedText = {'BBB 1'; 'AAA 10'; 'AAA 9'; 'AAA 1'; 'BBB 2'; 'BBB 19'; 'BBB 9'; 'CCC 0'; 'CCC 9' ;'CCC 80'; 'CCC 7'}; R = cell2mat(regexp(UnsortedText ,'(?\D+)(?\d+)','names')); tmp = sortrows([{R.Name}' num2cell(cellfun(@(x)str2double(x),{R.Nums}'))]); SortedText = strcat(tmp(:,1) ,cellfun(@(x) num2str(x), tmp(:,2),'unif',0)) There's got to be a simpler way to do this...

[tf, idx] = ismember(B,A); Places where tf are false are places where B is not in A. And of course, B might not cover all of A. If you know that B covers exactly A, then B(idx) should be the same as A

>> sort({'gamma', 'delta', 'alpha', 'beta'}) ans = 'alpha' 'beta' 'delta' 'gamma'

Download and use my FEX submission : >> C = { 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 105 100'; 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 19 100'; 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 2 100'; 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 110 100'; 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 18 100'; 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 30 100'}; >> natsortfiles(C) ans = 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 2 100' 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 19 100' 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c04\ 105 100' 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 18 100' 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 30 100' 'D:\Apple\v_Apple_g13_c05\ 110 100'

If, for any reason, you cannot install this function, you can sort your filenames as follows: [~, reindex] = sort( str2double( regexp( {A.name}, '\d+', 'match', 'once' ))) A = A(reindex) ; Note that it assumes that all files have the same base name. If you have to deal with various base names, then you need the function mentioned in the other answers, or to work a little more on the sorting.

The question is not clear. This is a contradiction: 1. "cell array of chars" 2. "(some of the cells should be strings while other should be doubles)" From the later text I guess, you want to sort a cell vector which contains scalar doubles: C = {1001, 112, 14}; [dummy, index] = sort([C{:}]); sortedC = C(index); CELLFUN(@double, ...) converts each element of the cell to a DOUBLE - therefore it does no change anything here!   EDITED: Now a method to sort a cell string according to the numbers the strings represent: C = {'1001', '112', '14'}; Str = sprintf('%s,', C{:}); D = sscanf(Str, '%g,'); [dummy, index] = sort(D); sortedC = C(index);