Natural sort layout keys before iteration for stable key order

Author: jonmmease

_plotly_utils/utils.py

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 import decimal
 import json as _json
 import sys
+import re
 
 import pytz
 
@@ -242,3 +243,18 @@ def _decorator(func):
                 func.__doc__ = func.__doc__.format(**names)
         return func
     return _decorator
+
+
+def _natural_sort_strings(vals, reverse=False):
+
+    def key(v):
+        v_parts = re.split(r'(\d+)', v)
+        for i in range(len(v_parts)):
+            try:
+                v_parts[i] = int(v_parts[i])
+            except ValueError:
+                # not an int
+                pass
+        return tuple(v_parts)
+
+    return sorted(vals, key=key, reverse=reverse)

plotly/basedatatypes.py

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 from contextlib import contextmanager
 from copy import deepcopy, copy
 
+from _plotly_utils.utils import _natural_sort_strings
 from plotly.subplots import (
     _set_trace_grid_reference,
     _get_grid_subplot,
@@ -810,7 +811,10 @@ def _select_layout_subplots_by_prefix(
         else:
             container_to_row_col = None
 
-        for k in self.layout:
+        # Natural sort keys so that xaxis20 is after xaxis3
+        layout_keys = _natural_sort_strings(list(self.layout))
+
+        for k in layout_keys:
             if k.startswith(prefix) and self.layout[k] is not None:
 
                 # Filter by row/col