File Sequence - Identification

Identification

Every operating system with a GUI shows contents of folders by usually ordering its files according to some criteria, mostly related to the files' metadata, like the filename. The criterion is, by default, the alphanumeric ordering of filenames, although some operating systems do that in "smarter" ways than others: for example file1.ext should ideally be placed before file10.ext, like Linux does whereas, alphanumerically, it comes after (more on that later). Other criteria exist, like ordering files by their file type (or by their extension) and, if the same type, by either filename or last-access date, and so on.

For this reason, when a file sequence has a more strong locality of reference, particularly when it is related to their actual contents, it is better to highlight this fact by letting their well-ordering induce an alphanumeric ordering of the filenames too. That is the case of explicit file sequences.