Non-alphanumeric list order from os.listdir()

I think the order has to do with the way the files are indexed on your FileSystem. If you really want to make it adhere to some order you can always sort the list after getting the files.

You can use the builtin sorted function to sort the strings however you want. Based on what you describe,

sorted(os.listdir(whatever_directory))

Alternatively, you can use the .sort method of a list:

lst = os.listdir(whatever_directory)
lst.sort()

I think should do the trick.

Note that the order that os.listdir gets the filenames is probably completely dependent on your filesystem.

Per the documentation:

os.listdir(path)

Return a list containing the names of the entries in the directory given by path. The list is in arbitrary order. It does not include the special entries '.' and '..' even if they are present in the directory.

Order cannot be relied upon and is an artifact of the filesystem.

To sort the result, use sorted(os.listdir(path)).