What is the first character in the sort order used by Windows Explorer

Question

For example  in a Windows folder  if we create some files and name them 1 html  2 txt  3 txt  photo jpg  zen png the order will be as is  But if we create another file with the name  file doc it will be placed at the top   considering we sort by name in descending order   likewise  what would be the character that would be considered as the first  such that if i use that character  it would place the file on top of the hierarchy

User · Answer

Only a few characters in the Windows code page 1252 (Latin-1) are not allowed as names. Note that the Windows Explorer will strip leading spaces from names and not allow you to call a files space dot something (like ?.txt), although this is allowed in the file system! Only a space and no file extension is invalid however.

If you create files through e.g. a Python script (this is what I did), then you can easily find out what is actually allowed and in what order the characters get sorted. The sort order varies based on your locale! Below are the results of my script, run with Python 2.7.15 on a German Windows 10 Pro 64bit:

Allowed:

       32  20  SPACE
!      33  21  EXCLAMATION MARK
#      35  23  NUMBER SIGN
$      36  24  DOLLAR SIGN
%      37  25  PERCENT SIGN
&      38  26  AMPERSAND
'      39  27  APOSTROPHE
(      40  28  LEFT PARENTHESIS
)      41  29  RIGHT PARENTHESIS
+      43  2B  PLUS SIGN
,      44  2C  COMMA
-      45  2D  HYPHEN-MINUS
.      46  2E  FULL STOP
/      47  2F  SOLIDUS
0      48  30  DIGIT ZERO
1      49  31  DIGIT ONE
2      50  32  DIGIT TWO
3      51  33  DIGIT THREE
4      52  34  DIGIT FOUR
5      53  35  DIGIT FIVE
6      54  36  DIGIT SIX
7      55  37  DIGIT SEVEN
8      56  38  DIGIT EIGHT
9      57  39  DIGIT NINE
;      59  3B  SEMICOLON
=      61  3D  EQUALS SIGN
@      64  40  COMMERCIAL AT
A      65  41  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
B      66  42  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B
C      67  43  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C
D      68  44  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D
E      69  45  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E
F      70  46  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F
G      71  47  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G
H      72  48  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H
I      73  49  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
J      74  4A  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J
K      75  4B  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K
L      76  4C  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L
M      77  4D  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M
N      78  4E  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N
O      79  4F  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O
P      80  50  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P
Q      81  51  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q
R      82  52  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R
S      83  53  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S
T      84  54  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T
U      85  55  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U
V      86  56  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V
W      87  57  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W
X      88  58  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X
Y      89  59  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y
Z      90  5A  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z
[      91  5B  LEFT SQUARE BRACKET
\\     92  5C  REVERSE SOLIDUS
]      93  5D  RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET
^      94  5E  CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
_      95  5F  LOW LINE
`      96  60  GRAVE ACCENT
a      97  61  LATIN SMALL LETTER A
b      98  62  LATIN SMALL LETTER B
c      99  63  LATIN SMALL LETTER C
d     100  64  LATIN SMALL LETTER D
e     101  65  LATIN SMALL LETTER E
f     102  66  LATIN SMALL LETTER F
g     103  67  LATIN SMALL LETTER G
h     104  68  LATIN SMALL LETTER H
i     105  69  LATIN SMALL LETTER I
j     106  6A  LATIN SMALL LETTER J
k     107  6B  LATIN SMALL LETTER K
l     108  6C  LATIN SMALL LETTER L
m     109  6D  LATIN SMALL LETTER M
n     110  6E  LATIN SMALL LETTER N
o     111  6F  LATIN SMALL LETTER O
p     112  70  LATIN SMALL LETTER P
q     113  71  LATIN SMALL LETTER Q
r     114  72  LATIN SMALL LETTER R
s     115  73  LATIN SMALL LETTER S
t     116  74  LATIN SMALL LETTER T
u     117  75  LATIN SMALL LETTER U
v     118  76  LATIN SMALL LETTER V
w     119  77  LATIN SMALL LETTER W
x     120  78  LATIN SMALL LETTER X
y     121  79  LATIN SMALL LETTER Y
z     122  7A  LATIN SMALL LETTER Z
{     123  7B  LEFT CURLY BRACKET
}     125  7D  RIGHT CURLY BRACKET
~     126  7E  TILDE
\x7f  127  7F  DELETE
\x80  128  80  EURO SIGN
\x81  129  81  
\x82  130  82  SINGLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
\x83  131  83  LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH HOOK
\x84  132  84  DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK
\x85  133  85  HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS
\x86  134  86  DAGGER
\x87  135  87  DOUBLE DAGGER
\x88  136  88  MODIFIER LETTER CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT
\x89  137  89  PER MILLE SIGN
\x8a  138  8A  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CARON
\x8b  139  8B  SINGLE LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION
\x8c  140  8C  LATIN CAPITAL LIGATURE OE
\x8d  141  8D  
\x8e  142  8E  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH CARON
\x8f  143  8F  
\x90  144  90  
\x91  145  91  LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
\x92  146  92  RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK
\x93  147  93  LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
\x94  148  94  RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
\x95  149  95  BULLET
\x96  150  96  EN DASH
\x97  151  97  EM DASH
\x98  152  98  SMALL TILDE
\x99  153  99  TRADE MARK SIGN
\x9a  154  9A  LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CARON
\x9b  155  9B  SINGLE RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
\x9c  156  9C  LATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE
\x9d  157  9D  
\x9e  158  9E  LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH CARON
\x9f  159  9F  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS
\xa0  160  A0  NON-BREAKING SPACE
\xa1  161  A1  INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK
\xa2  162  A2  CENT SIGN
\xa3  163  A3  POUND SIGN
\xa4  164  A4  CURRENCY SIGN
\xa5  165  A5  YEN SIGN
\xa6  166  A6  PIPE, BROKEN VERTICAL BAR
\xa7  167  A7  SECTION SIGN
\xa8  168  A8  SPACING DIAERESIS - UMLAUT
\xa9  169  A9  COPYRIGHT SIGN
\xaa  170  AA  FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR
\xab  171  AB  LEFT DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTES
\xac  172  AC  NOT SIGN
\xad  173  AD  SOFT HYPHEN
\xae  174  AE  REGISTERED TRADE MARK SIGN
\xaf  175  AF  SPACING MACRON - OVERLINE
\xb0  176  B0  DEGREE SIGN
\xb1  177  B1  PLUS-OR-MINUS SIGN
\xb2  178  B2  SUPERSCRIPT TWO - SQUARED
\xb3  179  B3  SUPERSCRIPT THREE - CUBED
\xb4  180  B4  ACUTE ACCENT - SPACING ACUTE
\xb5  181  B5  MICRO SIGN
\xb6  182  B6  PILCROW SIGN - PARAGRAPH SIGN
\xb7  183  B7  MIDDLE DOT - GEORGIAN COMMA
\xb8  184  B8  SPACING CEDILLA
\xb9  185  B9  SUPERSCRIPT ONE
\xba  186  BA  MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR
\xbb  187  BB  RIGHT DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTES
\xbc  188  BC  FRACTION ONE QUARTER
\xbd  189  BD  FRACTION ONE HALF
\xbe  190  BE  FRACTION THREE QUARTERS
\xbf  191  BF  INVERTED QUESTION MARK
\xc0  192  C0  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
\xc1  193  C1  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
\xc2  194  C2  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xc3  195  C3  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE
\xc4  196  C4  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
\xc5  197  C5  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
\xc6  198  C6  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER AE
\xc7  199  C7  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
\xc8  200  C8  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
\xc9  201  C9  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
\xca  202  CA  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xcb  203  CB  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
\xcc  204  CC  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
\xcd  205  CD  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
\xce  206  CE  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xcf  207  CF  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
\xd0  208  D0  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH
\xd1  209  D1  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE
\xd2  210  D2  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
\xd3  211  D3  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
\xd4  212  D4  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xd5  213  D5  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH TILDE
\xd6  214  D6  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
\xd7  215  D7  MULTIPLICATION SIGN
\xd8  216  D8  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH SLASH
\xd9  217  D9  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
\xda  218  DA  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
\xdb  219  DB  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xdc  220  DC  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
\xdd  221  DD  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE
\xde  222  DE  LATIN CAPITAL LETTER THORN
\xdf  223  DF  LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
\xe0  224  E0  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH GRAVE
\xe1  225  E1  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE
\xe2  226  E2  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xe3  227  E3  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH TILDE
\xe4  228  E4  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS
\xe5  229  E5  LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE
\xe6  230  E6  LATIN SMALL LETTER AE
\xe7  231  E7  LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
\xe8  232  E8  LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH GRAVE
\xe9  233  E9  LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
\xea  234  EA  LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xeb  235  EB  LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH DIAERESIS
\xec  236  EC  LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH GRAVE
\xed  237  ED  LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE
\xee  238  EE  LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xef  239  EF  LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS
\xf0  240  F0  LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH
\xf1  241  F1  LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE
\xf2  242  F2  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH GRAVE
\xf3  243  F3  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE
\xf4  244  F4  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xf5  245  F5  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH TILDE
\xf6  246  F6  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DIAERESIS
\xf7  247  F7  DIVISION SIGN
\xf8  248  F8  LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH SLASH
\xf9  249  F9  LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH GRAVE
\xfa  250  FA  LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE
\xfb  251  FB  LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH CIRCUMFLEX
\xfc  252  FC  LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
\xfd  253  FD  LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE
\xfe  254  FE  LATIN SMALL LETTER THORN
\xff  255  FF  LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS

Forbidden:

\x00    0  00  NULL CHAR
\x01    1  01  START OF HEADING
\x02    2  02  START OF TEXT
\x03    3  03  END OF TEXT
\x04    4  04  END OF TRANSMISSION
\x05    5  05  ENQUIRY
\x06    6  06  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
\x07    7  07  BELL
\x08    8  08  BACK SPACE
\t      9  09  HORIZONTAL TAB
\n     10  0A  LINE FEED
\x0b   11  0B  VERTICAL TAB
\x0c   12  0C  FORM FEED
\r     13  0D  CARRIAGE RETURN
\x0e   14  0E  SHIFT OUT / X-ON
\x0f   15  0F  SHIFT IN / X-OFF
\x10   16  10  DATA LINE ESCAPE
\x11   17  11  DEVICE CONTROL 1 (OFT. XON)
\x12   18  12  DEVICE CONTROL 2
\x13   19  13  DEVICE CONTROL 3 (OFT. XOFF)
\x14   20  14  DEVICE CONTROL 4
\x15   21  15  NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
\x16   22  16  SYNCHRONOUS IDLE
\x17   23  17  END OF TRANSMIT BLOCK
\x18   24  18  CANCEL
\x19   25  19  END OF MEDIUM
\x1a   26  1A  SUBSTITUTE
\x1b   27  1B  ESCAPE
\x1c   28  1C  FILE SEPARATOR
\x1d   29  1D  GROUP SEPARATOR
\x1e   30  1E  RECORD SEPARATOR
\x1f   31  1F  UNIT SEPARATOR
"      34  22  QUOTATION MARK
*      42  2A  ASTERISK
:      58  3A  COLON
<      60  3C  LESS-THAN SIGN
>      62  3E  GREATER-THAN SIGN
?      63  3F  QUESTION MARK
|     124  7C  VERTICAL LINE

Screenshot of how Explorer sorts the files for me:

The highlighted file with the ? white smiley face was added manually by me (Alt+1) to show where this Unicode character (U+263A) ends up, see Jimbugs' answer.

The first file has a space as name (0x20), the second is the non-breaking space (0xa0). The files in the bottom half of the third row which look like they have no name use the characters with hex codes 0x81, 0x8D, 0x8F, 0x90, 0x9D (in this order from top to bottom).

User · Answer

I had the same problem  I wanted to  bury  a folder at the bottom of the sort instead of bringing it to the top with the     character   Windows recognizes most special characters as just that   special   and therefore they ALL are sorted at the top   However  if you think outside of the English characters  you will find a lot of luck  I used Character Map and the arial font  scrolled down past     and the others to the greek alphabet   Capitol Xi     worked best for me  but I didn t check to see which was the actual  lowest  in the sort

User · Answer

I know there is already an answer - and this is an old question - but I was wondering the same thing and after finding this answer I did a little experimentation on my own and had  IMO  a worthwhile addition to the discussion   The non-visible characters can still be used in a folder name - a placeholder is inserted - but the sort on ASCII value still seems to hold   I tested on Windows7  holding down the alt-key and typing in the ASCII code using the numeric keypad  I did not test very many  but was successful creating foldernames that started with ASCII 1  ASCII 2  and ASCII 3  Those correspond with SOH  STX and ETX  Respectively it displayed happy face  filled happy face  and filled heart   I m not sure if I can duplicate that here - but I will type them in on the next lines and submit    foldername   foldername   foldername

User · Answer

I know it s an old question  but it s easy to check this out  Just create a folder with a bunch of dummy files whose names are each character on the keyboard   Of course  you can t really use                lt    and leading and trailing blanks are a terrible idea   If you do this  and it looks like no one did  you find that the Windows sort order  for the FIRST character is    1   Special characters   2   Numbers   3   Letters  But for subsequent characters  it seems to be   1   Numbers   2   Special characters   3   Letters  Numbers are kind of weird  thanks to the  Improvements  made after the Y2K non-event  Special characters you would think would sort in ASCII order  but there are exceptions  notably the first two  apostrophe and dash  and the last two  plus and equals  Also  I have heard but not actually seen something about dashes being ignored  That is  in fact  NOT my experience     So  ShxFee  I assume you meant the sort should be ascending  not descending  and the top-most  first  character in the sort order for the first character of the name is  the apostrophe    As NigelTouch said  special characters do not sort to ASCII  but my notes above specify exactly what does and does not sort in normal ASCII order   But he is certainly  wrong about special characters always sorting first   As I noted above  that only appears to be true for the first character of the name

User · Answer

From my testing  there are three criteria for sorting characters as described below  Aside from this  shorter strings are sorted above longer strings that start with the same characters    Note  This testing only looked at the first character sorting and did not look into edge cases described by this answer  which found that  for all characters after the first character  numbers take precedence over symbols  i e  the order is 1  Symbols 2  Numbers 3  Letters for first character  1  Numbers 2  Symbols 3  Letters after   This answer also indicated that the Unicode ASCII layer of sorting might not be entirely consistent  I ll update this answer if I get time to look into these edge cases   Note  It s important to note that sorting order might be subject to change as described by this answer  It is not clear to me though the extent to which this actually ever changes  I ve done this testing and found it to be valid on both Windows 7 and Windows 10     Symbols Latin  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Greek  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Cyrillic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Hebrew  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Arabic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx      Numbers Latin  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Greek  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Cyrillic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Hebrew  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Arabic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx     Letters Latin  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Greek  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Cyrillic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Hebrew  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx   Arabic  ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx         Sorting Rule Sequence vs Observed Order  It s worth noting that there are really two ways of looking at this  Ultimately  what you have are sorting rules that are applied in a certain order  in turn  this produces an observed order  The ordering of older rules becomes nested under the ordering of newer rules  This means that the first rule applied is the last rule observed  while the last rule applied is the first or topmost rule observed   Sorting Rule Sequence  1   Sort on Unicode Value  U xxxx  2   Sort on culture language 3   Sort on Type  Symbol  Number  Letter   Observed Order   The highest level of grouping is by type in the following order     1   Symbols  2   Numbers  3   Letters    Therefore  any symbol from any language comes before any number from any language  while any letter from any language appears after all symbols and numbers  The second level of grouping is by culture language  The following order seems to apply for this   Latin  Greek  Cyrillic  Hebrew  Arabic The lowest rule observed is Unicode order  so items within a type-language group are ordered by Unicode value  U xxxx       Adapted from here  https   superuser com a 971721 496260

User · Answer

TLDR  technically space sorts before exclamation mar  and can be used by preceding it with   or -  which will be ignored in sorting   but exclamation mark follows right after space  and is easier to use   On windows 7 at least  a minus sign  -  and     seem to be ignored in a name except for one quirk  in a name that is otherwise identical  the   will be sorted before -  for example   a a  will sort above  a-a   Empty string will sort above everything else  which means for example aa will sort above aaa because the  empty string  after two a letters will sort before the third  a    This also means that aa will be sorted above a a because the  empty string  between two a letters will sort above the   mark   What follows then is    alone will sort first  because technically it s an empty string   However adding for example letters behind it will sort the name as if the   didn t exist   Since the first  unignored  character  as far as I know  is space  in case you want to sort  real names  above others  the best way to go would be   followed by space  and then the name you want to actually use   For example     first   You can of course top that by using more than one space in the strong  such as     firster  and      firstest  with two and three blanks before the f   While minus sign sorts below   in otherwise similar name  there s no other difference in sorting  that I know of   and I find minus sign visually clearer  so if I want to put something on top of list  I d use minus followed by space  then the  actual name   for example   - first file -   If you are worried about using space on the filename  then exclamation mark     is the next best thing - and since it can appear as first character on a string  it s easier to use

User · Answer

The first visible character is     according to ASCII table And the last one is     So  quot  file doc quot  or  quot  file doc  will be the top one depending your ranking order  You can check the ascii table here  http   www asciitable com  Edit  This answer is based on the opinion of the author and not facts

User · Answer

If you google for sort order windows explorer you will find out that Windows Explorer  since Windows XP  obviously uses the function StrCmpLogicalW in the sort order  by name   I did not find information about the treatment of the underscore character  I was amused by the following note in the documentation       Behavior of this function  and therefore the results it returns  can change from release to release

User · Answer

Although the answer with     was chosen as the correct answer  this is NOT true  I  m not sure about Windows Explorer in Windows 10 8 1 8  but I am certain concerning Windows 7 and XP   The character that moves your filename to the very top is      alt 39   and second best is  -   the minus sign    But sorting order in Windows Explorer is more complicated - it depends on the filename-lenght also  and numbers are treated very special   The second character  and the following  is treated different  Here you often go best with a      spacebar   followed by the characters mentioned above  but you  ll have to try out  because it  s not so easy to find out the exact algorithm   Here is an example for the correct sorting order for your understanding    file      file        longer filename  file         and so on  file   -  file   --  file   ---   and so on  file   - -   spacebar used  file          spacebar two times  therefore longer filename  file           most top character  but longer filename   file      0   shorter filename  but chars like numbers came in    Another example         aaaa       is better than spacebar and spacebar is better than  a       aaaaa     aaaaaa    Same filelenght     -- aa   spacebar comes before  -  in this case    ---aa   --aaa    Finally the very special logic when it comes to numbers     0000000   0   00001    But nevertheless  Renaming folders or files this way  you can quickly find what you are searching for

[windows] What is the first character in the sort order used by Windows Explorer?

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