The ``natsort.natsort()`` function in the ``naturalsort`` package is a very simple alternative to Python's ``sorted()`` function that implements `natural order sorting`_ in Python. The package is available on PyPI, so getting started is very simple:

$ pip install naturalsort
$ python
> from natsort import natsort
> versions = ['1.8.1-r26', '1.8.1-r30', '2.0-r2', '2.0-r7', '2.0-r11']
> natsort(['my-package-%s' % v for v in versions])
['my-package-1.8.1-r26',
'my-package-1.8.1-r30',
'my-package-2.0-r2',
'my-package-2.0-r7',
'my-package-2.0-r11']
The main use case that this package was originally created for is sorting of pathnames with versions numbers embedded in them. This is why the sorting key defined by the ``naturalsort`` package ignores filename extensions (not doing so can give unexpected results).