Words for "pre"/"post" or "before"/"after" that sort the same logically and alphabetically?

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TL;DR - Silly OCD question looking for better words.

I have a list of callback labels similar to:

  • ingest_before
  • ingest_after
  • pre_parse
  • post_parse
  • before_notify
  • after_notify

This is all well and good...those names convey the context succinctly and accurately.

BUT! It bugs me that "pre" sorts after "post" alphabetically, and that "before" comes after "after" when sorted.

Note - I'm not looking to control the order my callbacks are called in this way. Their callback points are hard-coded and never sorted. I would just feel better if they sorted better when I report events or write documentation if they sorted better. I'm not interested in all the reasons why depending on this ordering is a bad idea. This is not to satisfy any sort of system requirements...just my own hangups.

So the real question is:

What is a pair of words that indicates a relative sequence between two things, that just happens to alphabetically sort in the same order?

1 Answers

What about First/Last, First/Then, Begin/End, Start/Stop? Are initial numbers allowed, then 1st/2nd/3rd/last. You can also make any of your pairs sort the way you want if you allow case to differ, e.g. in ASCII and Unicode, Before < after, Pre < post.

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