I have the following problem: I have an array of N integer triplets (i.e. an Nx3 matrix) and I would like to order it lexicographically in Matlab. In order to do so I thought of using the built-in sort algorithm of Matlab, but I wanted to ask if the way I thought of doing it is right or if there exists a simpler way (preferably using Matlab routines).
I thought of converting every triplet into a single number and then sort these numbers with sort(). If my integers were between 0 and 9, I could just convert them into decimal. However, they are bigger. If their maximum absolute value is M, I thought of converting them into the (M+1)-ary system like this: if (a,b,c) the triplet, the corresponding integer is a*(M+1)^2+b*(M+1)+c. Would sorting these transformed integers solve the problem, or am I making a logical mistake in my reasoning?
Thank you!
PS: I know that sort() in Matlab does have a lexicographic option for strings, but my integers do not have the same digit length. Maybe padding them with leading zeros and concatenating them would do the trick?
Have you considered using sortrows?
Should enable you to straight-forward sort your 3-columns of data lexicographically.