problem in sorting an array with "sortrows" command

I have two arrays, one is time and other is direction. I want to sort the directions by time by using the code below. the direction is sorted well but my time array is ruined. how can I fix this? (because I still need the time array)

code's result is shown in the image.

any help will be appreciated.

 timeorder=[3.4,7,1,8,5.1,9];
>> direction=['u','d','L','r','u','r'];
>> sorted = (sortrows([timeorder',direction'], 1))' ;
>> timord = sorted(1,:);
>> drc = sorted(2,:);

[Stephen23]

Note that is MATLAB square brackets are a concatenation operator, so this

['u','d','L','r','u','r']

is just a complex way of writing this:

'udLrur'

Answer 1

[Dave B]

A good way to sort one array using the order of another is with the second output argument of sort:

timeorder=[3.4,7,1,8,5.1,9];
direction=['u','d','L','r','u','r'];

[sortedtimeorder, sortind] = sort(timeorder)

sortedtimeorder = 1×6

1.0000 3.4000 5.1000 7.0000 8.0000 9.0000

sortind = 1×6

3 1 5 2 4 6

sorteddirection=direction(sortind)

sorteddirection = 'Luudrr'

However if you really wanted to use sortrows, you could always convert the values in timord back to numeric (MATLAB turned them into char for you when you combined the two vectors into a matrix):

timeorder=[3.4,7,1,8,5.1,9];
direction=['u','d','L','r','u','r'];
sorted = (sortrows([timeorder',direction'], 1))' ;
timord = sorted(1,:);
drc = sorted(2,:);
double(timord)

ans = 1×6

1 3 5 7 8 9