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This describes a method of sorting that tries to put strings into a sensible order when those strings contain a mixture of character and numeric data.  For example:

10a

10b

1a

1a10

1a5

2a100c

2a20c

Above is the order that a normal character sort would use for these strings.  A mixed sort will produce:

1a

1a5

1a10

2a20c

2a100c

10a

10b

This will only work with positive integers unless the whole string is a number.  In this case the negative numbers will appear first.