sorting - 按字母顺序对数字数据进行排序

Question

在任何情况下按字母顺序对数字数据进行排序很有用？例如

111
12
2

当按升序排序时，给出：

111
12
2

Answer 1

我想不出任何好的理由，而且总体上只会让人感到困惑。

Answer 2

I finally thought of one.

When investigating Benford's Law.

Also, when the data isn't really "numerical", it's strings which just happen to consist only of digits, but which need to be lexically sorted along with other strings that might contain non-digits. But I'm cheating, since you specified "numerical data" rather than "strings of digits".

There are going to be very few mathematical situations where it makes sense to use a sort order that depends what base you've chosen for the numbers. Especially since you're working in base 10, but the software is probably working in base 2 where it's even relevant.