Help:Sorting

Tables can be made sortable via client-side JavaScript with class="sortable" (in combination with the usual formatting: class="wikitable sortable"). This works in MediaWiki 1.9 and above, which is installed in all Wikimedia projects.

A table that is sortable is identified by arrows to the right of the header in a header cell. A sortable table may be sortable by one or more columns in the table. Clicking an arrow sorts the table rows based on the selected column. Repeated clicking of an arrow changes the sort state in this sequence: Ascending, Descending, Unsorted.

Shift-clicking the arrows of other columns will trigger a secondary sort based on the most recent column on which the shift-click occurred. NB: Shift-clicking capability extends to tertiary and beyond.

Links and other wiki-markup are not possible in headers.

JavaScript

The JavaScript code jquery.tablesorter.js (source) of the tablesorter is loaded by the ResourceLoader. Some sites may have a page MediaWiki:Common.js which adds and overrides some code. Browsers need to support JavaScript and it needs to be enabled for sorting to work.

Sort modes

The way items are sorted depends on the data type of the first rows. To determine the data type, the first 5 non-blank rows below the header are tested after loading the page and the most appropriate format is chosen. Mismatches are possible. The sort order of a column can be forced. See the relevant section farther down.

Tags such as span or sup are ignored when determining data type, but reference numbers and additional visible comments are not ignored today.

Dates

Various date formats are supported, including those with localized month names. On the German Wikipedia, "16. März 2010" is correctly sorted as 2010-03-16

Most other numerical formats are supported as well, including those with different separators (such as . , ' or / ); On English Wikipedias dates are treated as US-Dates (eg. month-day-year) per default.

Numbers

The script can recognize numbers with different decimal separators (. and ,) as well as e/E numbers. However, numbers will be sorted alphanumerically (with 9 sorted after 10) unless this default behaviour is overridden. (See below.)

Text

Text is compared at client-side JavaScript since July 2019 (Commit) with Intl.Collator. This sort accented characters depend on PageContentLanguage correctly. But sort of special characters is depend on Browser implementation. Example for Intl.Collator(de):

Firefox52.9: _-—,;:!?.'"()[]{}§@*/\&#%^+±<=>|~∞¢$£¥€0…9²³aä…eé…ö…ß…ü…z
IE11:      '-—!"#$%&()*,./:;?@[\]^_{|}~¢£¥€+<=>±≤≥§♠0²³9∞aä…eé…ö…ß…ü…z

Only Android systems use the old sort mode with UTF-16 coded characters. Any accented/special characters follow after the basic latin alphabet. This can be changed site wide by posting code like the following inside the MediaWiki:Common.js:

mw.config.set('tableSorterCollation', {'ä':'a', 'ß':'ss', 'þ':'th', 'aa':'å'});

Afterwards, all 'Ä' and 'ä' will be sorted as if they were an 'a' etc. Partial list showing the default order:
! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 9 : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` A Z a z { | } ~ É é —

• See: #Basic alphabetic sorting order
• See also: MediaWiki:Help:Sorting#Sort order (here capital letters like A–Z are sorted after @)

Forcing the sort mode for a column

The sort mode can be manually specified by putting data-sort-type="…" inside the header of the respective row. This functionality is based on tablesorter.com (webarchive). The following (case-insensitive) values are valid for data-sort-type:

• text
• number
• IPAddress
• currency
• url
• isoDate
• usLongDate
• date
• time

Example:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!data-sort-type="date"|Date!!Name!!Height!!data-sort-type="number"|Salary
|-
|01.10.1977||Smith||1.85||1,000.000
|-
|11.6.1972||Ray||1.89||900.000
|-
|1.9.1992||Bianchi||1.72||2,000.50
|}

Date	Name	Height	Salary
01.10.1977	Smith	1.85	1,000.000
11.6.1972	Ray	1.89	900.000
1.9.1992	Bianchi	1.72	2,000.50

Specifying a sort key

Sometimes the value of a cell is not correctly parsed or one wants to sort the row in a special way. (e.g. a cell containing 'John Smith' should actually be sorted as 'Smith' and not as 'John') This can be easily achieved by setting the data-sort-value attribute.

Wiki markup:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name and Surname!!Height
|-
|data-sort-value="Smith, John"|John Smith||1.85
|-
|data-sort-value="Ray, Ian"|Ian Ray||1.89
|-
|data-sort-value="Bianchi, Zachary"|Zachary Bianchi||1.72
|}

This gives:

Name and Surname	Height
John Smith	1.85
Ian Ray	1.89
Zachary Bianchi	1.72

Note, however, that this makes use of a new feature in HTML5, which is enabled by default in MediaWiki (including WMF wikis since September 2012 cfr. bugzilla:27478). The old version was to set hidden sort key with w:Template:Sort. See also mediawiki.org.

Controlling sorting and display

If some Text undesired for sorting but needed for display, force the sort mode with data-sort-type="…" and write text after values (e.g. "200 approx", or reference tags "100^[1]"). Empty cell is treated as "-Infinity" when sorting numerically.

In the case of a cell containing a range of dates or numbers (e.g. from 2 to 5), specify a data-sort-value="…".

Examples

The first column demonstrates how plain numbers are detected and sorted as numbers. The second column shows that with data-sort-type="number" in table header more content detected as numbers. The fourth column shows that with data-sort-value="…" a numeric sortvalue is defined, independent of the cell content.

numbers	data-sort-type="number"		data-sort-type="number"
-8e3	-8 e3		-8 e3
-3e-3	-3 e-3		-3 e-3
2.000	2-5 km²	data-sort-value="3.5"	2-5 km²
3.99	3.99 km²		3.99 km²
4	4 km²		4 km²
90 %	90 Percent	data-sort-value="90"	about 90 Percent
1E2	100[1]		100[1]
1,000,000.0	1 000 000.0	data-sort-value="1e6"	one Million

The thousand separator(,) and digits separator(.) depends on language specific configuration of the Mediawiki software. Currency symbols before or after numbers or the %-symbol will be sorted numerical.

currencies $ 9 $ 80 $ 70 $ 600

currencies 9 € 80 € 70 € 600 €

currencies £ 9 £ 80 £ 70 £ 600

currencies ¥ 9 ¥ 80 ¥ 70 ¥ 600

percent 9 % 80 % 70 % 600 %

numbers −7e270 -1.4285714285714E-13 999e9 7e270

Secondary sort key

It is possible to sort by column A (primary sort key), while for equal values in column A, sort by column B (secondary sort key): first sort by A by clicking the sort button of column A once or twice, then, while holding the shift-key, click the sort button of column B once or twice.

Example:

First click on column Text and then, while holding the shift-key, on Numbers, you'll see that the ordering is on Text (1), Numbers (2).

Numbers	Text	Dates	Currency	More text
4	a	01.Jan.2005	4.20	row 1
5	a	05/12/2006	7.15	row 2
1	b	02-02-2004	5.00	row 3
1	a	02-02-2004	5.00	row 4
2	x	13-apr-2005		row 5
2	a	13-apr-2005		row 6
3	a	17.aug.2006	6.50	row 7
3	z	25.aug.2006	2.30	row 8
3	z	28.aug.2006	5.50	row 9
3	z	31.aug.2006	3.77	row 10
3	z	01.sep.2006	1.50	row 11
Bottom

Additional features

Excluding the last row from sorting

Sometimes it is helpful to exclude the last row of a table from the sorting process. This can be achieved by setting class="sortbottom" on the last row. Declaring the last row as a footer (with !) will also exclude it from sorting.

Wiki markup:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Surname!!Height
|-
|John||Smith||1.85
|-
|Ron||Ray||1.89
|-
|Mario||Bianchi||1.72
|- class="sortbottom"
! !!Average:||1.82
|}

What it looks like in your browser:

Name	Surname	Height
John	Smith	1.85
Ron	Ray	1.89
Mario	Bianchi	1.72
	Average:	1.82

Excluding the first row from sorting

The same can be applied for first rows as well, by setting class="sorttop".

Wiki markup:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Name!!Surname!!Height
|- class="sorttop"
! !!Average:||1.82
|-
|John||Smith||1.85
|-
|Ron||Ray||1.89
|-
|Mario||Bianchi||1.72
|}

Name	Surname	Height
	Average:	1.82
John	Smith	1.85
Ron	Ray	1.89
Mario	Bianchi	1.72

Making a column unsortable

If you want a specific column not to be sortable, specify class="unsortable" in the attributes of its header cell.

Wiki markup:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Numbers!!Alphabet!!Dates!!Currency!!class="unsortable"|Unsortable
|-
|1||Z||02-02-2004||5.00||This
|-
|2||y||13-apr-2005||||Column
|-
|3||X||17.aug.2006||6.50||Is
|-
|4||w||01.Jan.2005||4.20||Unsortable
|-
|5||V||05/12/2006||7.15||See?
|-
!Total: 15!!!!!!Total: 29.55!!
|-
|}

What it looks like in your browser:

Numbers	Alphabet	Dates	Currency	Unsortable
1	Z	02-02-2004	5.00	This
2	y	13-apr-2005		Column
3	X	17.aug.2006	6.50	Is
4	w	01.Jan.2005	4.20	Unsortable
5	V	05/12/2006	7.15	See?
Total: 15			Total: 29.55	Original example

Keeping some rows together

If you want that a row will always be below the row just above it and will follow it around, no matter how the sorting is applied, specify class="expand-child" in the attribute of this row.

Wiki markup:

{| class="wikitable sortable"
! style="width:9em"| Country !!data-sort-type="number"| Area
|-
| France
| 674 843 km²
|- class="expand-child" style="font-size:85%; line-height:1.2; color:gray"
| colspan="2" | In Paris is the Eiffel Tower.
|-
| U.K.
| 242 495 km²
|- class="expand-child" style="font-size:85%; line-height:1.2; color:gray"
| colspan="2" | In the U.K. you cannot pay with euros.
|- class="expand-child" style="font-size:85%; line-height:1.2; color:gray"
| colspan="2" | And you drive on the left side of the road.
|-
| Germany
| 357 168 km² 
|- class="expand-child" style="font-size:85%; line-height:1.2; color:gray"
| colspan="2" | Germany includes the former DDR.
|}

What it looks like in your browser:

Country	Area
France	674 843 km²
In Paris is the Eiffel Tower.
U.K.	242 495 km²
In the U.K. you cannot pay with euros.
And you drive on the left side of the road.
Germany	357 168 km²
Germany includes the former DDR.

If you put in data-sort-value the same content as above row, keep this rows also together. The original mutual order of these rows is preserved. A better way for this is class expand-child, see above #Keeping some rows together.

Example where data-sort-value is used is the case for the rows about the Netherlands:

{|class="wikitable sortable"
!Country/province!!Capital
|-
|France||Paris
|-
|Netherlands||Amsterdam
|-
|data-sort-value=Netherlands|South Holland||data-sort-value=Amsterdam|The Hague
|-
|U.K.||London
|}

Country/province	Capital
France	Paris
Netherlands	Amsterdam
South Holland	The Hague
U.K.	London

Special dates

For years BC we can use, for example, !9937-09-23 for -0062-09-23 (subtract the year number BC from 10000, or the absolute value of the astronomical year from 9999).

If a table column contains any or all incomplete dates, this will not cause sorting problems. If only a year and month are given, that incomplete date is positioned alphabetically before the first day of the month in question. Likewise, if only a year is given, the date is positioned before the first month or day given for that year.

Use of #time

Using parser function #time we can put <span style="display:none">&{{#expr:3e11+{{#time:U|..}}}}</span> in front of the displayed date. This works in the range 1 Jan 111, 00:00:00 through 31 Dec 9999, 23:59:59 for the proleptic Gregorian calendar. The added value makes all values positive and the same length (if scientific format would show up an additional step is needed to prevent this). The "&" forces string sort mode.

Dates and times can be entered in any php date/time format. Note that when we have just a year, a month (typically Jan) must be added in the hidden part.

Example using Help:Sorting/date:

input date	text	date and time as interpreted, with hidden sort key	input with visible sort key	input with hidden sort key	Unix time
010203		&301715216523 09 May 2024 01:02:03	&301715216523 010203	&301715216523 010203	1715216523
1/2		&301704153600 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00	&301704153600 1/2	&301704153600 1/2	1704153600
1/2/3		&301041465600 02 Jan 2003 00:00:00	&301041465600 1/2/3	&301041465600 1/2/3	1041465600
1-2-2003		&301044057600 01 Feb 2003 00:00:00	&301044057600 1-2-2003	&301044057600 1-2-2003	1044057600
1-2-3		&300981158400 03 Feb 2001 00:00:00	&300981158400 1-2-3	&300981158400 1-2-3	981158400
2007		&301167609600 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00	&301167609600 2007	&301167609600 2007	1167609600
1 Jan 111, 00:00:00		&241335609600 01 Jan 0111 00:00:00	&241335609600 1 Jan 111, 00:00:00	&241335609600 1 Jan 111, 00:00:00	-58664390400
31 Dec 9999, 23:59:59		&553402300799 31 Dec 9999 23:59:59	&553402300799 31 Dec 9999, 23:59:59	&553402300799 31 Dec 9999, 23:59:59	253402300799
Sep 1970		&300020995200 01 Sep 1970 00:00:00	&300020995200 Sep 1970	&300020995200 Sep 1970	20995200
1970		&300000000000 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00	&300000000000 1970	&300000000000 1970	0
Jun 2007	or later	&301180656000 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 or later	&301180656000 Jun 2007 or later	&301180656000 Jun 2007 or later	1180656000 or later
Jun 2007	perhaps earlier	&301180656000 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 perhaps earlier	&301180656000 Jun 2007 perhaps earlier	&301180656000 Jun 2007 perhaps earlier	1180656000 perhaps earlier
2007-6		&301180656000 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00	&301180656000 2007-6	&301180656000 2007-6	1180656000
Jun 2007		&301180656000 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00	&301180656000 Jun 2007	&301180656000 Jun 2007	1180656000
4 Jun 2007		&301180915200 04 Jun 2007 00:00:00	&301180915200 4 Jun 2007	&301180915200 4 Jun 2007	1180915200
3 Jul 2007		&301183420800 03 Jul 2007 00:00:00	&301183420800 3 Jul 2007	&301183420800 3 Jul 2007	1183420800
12 Aug 2006		&301155340800 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00	&301155340800 12 Aug 2006	&301155340800 12 Aug 2006	1155340800
1 Mar 2006 -1day		&301141084800 28 Feb 2006 00:00:00	&301141084800 1 Mar 2006 -1day	&301141084800 1 Mar 2006 -1day	1141084800
1 Mar 2008 -1day		&301204243200 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00	&301204243200 1 Mar 2008 -1day	&301204243200 1 Mar 2008 -1day	1204243200
1 Mar 2010 -1day		&301267315200 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00	&301267315200 1 Mar 2010 -1day	&301267315200 1 Mar 2010 -1day	1267315200
1 Mar 1900 -1day		&297796022400 28 Feb 1900 00:00:00	&297796022400 1 Mar 1900 -1day	&297796022400 1 Mar 1900 -1day	-2203977600
1 Mar 1600 -1day		&288329001600 29 Feb 1600 00:00:00	&288329001600 1 Mar 1600 -1day	&288329001600 1 Mar 1600 -1day	-11670998400
Jun 1607		&288557875200 01 Jun 1607 00:00:00	&288557875200 Jun 1607	&288557875200 Jun 1607	-11442124800
20240509101748		&301715249868 09 May 2024 10:17:48	&301715249868 20240509101748	&301715249868 20240509101748	1715249868
yesterday		&301715126400 08 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715126400 yesterday	&301715126400 yesterday	1715126400
today		&301715212800 09 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715212800 today	&301715212800 today	1715212800
tomorrow		&301715299200 10 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715299200 tomorrow	&301715299200 tomorrow	1715299200
1week		&301715854668 16 May 2024 10:17:48	&301715854668 1week	&301715854668 1week	1715854668
-1week		&301714645068 02 May 2024 10:17:48	&301714645068 -1week	&301714645068 -1week	1714645068
1day		&301715336268 10 May 2024 10:17:48	&301715336268 1day	&301715336268 1day	1715336268
-1day		&301715163468 08 May 2024 10:17:48	&301715163468 -1day	&301715163468 -1day	1715163468
1month		&301717928268 09 Jun 2024 10:17:48	&301717928268 1month	&301717928268 1month	1717928268
-1month		&301712657868 09 Apr 2024 10:17:48	&301712657868 -1month	&301712657868 -1month	1712657868
1year		&301746785868 09 May 2025 10:17:48	&301746785868 1year	&301746785868 1year	1746785868
-1year		&301683627468 09 May 2023 10:17:48	&301683627468 -1year	&301683627468 -1year	1683627468
1000year		&333272158668 09 May 3024 10:17:48	&333272158668 1000year	&333272158668 1000year	33272158668
10000month		&328012817868 09 Sep 2857 10:17:48	&328012817868 10000month	&328012817868 10000month	28012817868
1000000day		&388115249868 06 Apr 4762 10:17:48	&388115249868 1000000day	&388115249868 1000000day	88115249868
10000000hour		&337715249868 24 Feb 3165 02:17:48	&337715249868 10000000hour	&337715249868 10000000hour	37715249868
1000000000minute		&361715249868 05 Sep 3925 20:57:48	&361715249868 1000000000minute	&361715249868 1000000000minute	61715249868
100000000000second		&401715249868 24 Mar 5193 20:04:28	&401715249868 100000000000second	&401715249868 100000000000second	101715249868
7980year		&	& 7980year	& 7980year
-1890year		&242072552268 09 May 0134 10:17:48	&242072552268 -1890year	&242072552268 -1890year	-57927447732
Mon		&301715558400 13 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715558400 Mon	&301715558400 Mon	1715558400
Tue		&301715644800 14 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715644800 Tue	&301715644800 Tue	1715644800
Wed		&301715731200 15 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715731200 Wed	&301715731200 Wed	1715731200
Thu		&301715212800 09 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715212800 Thu	&301715212800 Thu	1715212800
Fri		&301715299200 10 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715299200 Fri	&301715299200 Fri	1715299200
Sat		&301715385600 11 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715385600 Sat	&301715385600 Sat	1715385600
Sun		&301715472000 12 May 2024 00:00:00	&301715472000 Sun	&301715472000 Sun	1715472000
		&	&	&
unknown		&	& unknown	& unknown

To use dates before the year 111, add a multiple of 400, e.g. 6000, to all years, this effectively shifts the range to 1 Jan -5889, 00:00:00 through 31 Dec 3999, 23:59:59, without changing the calendar.

See also:

• w:Template:Dts - sorting a table by a date column
• Template:Sd - shows weekday in a separate column before date, and link all dates

Cell spanning multiple rows/cells

A cell which spans more than one row or column is treated as if it were multiple cells with the same value.

rowspan Date Name Height 01.10.1977 Smith 1.85 11.06.1972 Adams 01.09.1992 Bianchi 1.72

colspan A B C A 2 1 B 1 3 C 2

As of MediaWiki Version 1.26 wmf23 (Sept. 2015), sorting of colspanned cells works correctly. Also, missing cells at the end of a row will change after first sort into cells with empty content.

Colspanned cells

The auto-detection of sort mode is done for colspanned cells for each column separately. Defining the sort mode by putting data-sort-type inside the header will specify this sort mode for all colspanned columns.

To use separate sort keys for each column in a colspanned cell, use the CSS hack described here: To allow sorting, the formal number of cells in each row should be equal (If not, all columns become sortable. This should apply at least for the number of cells up to and including the last sortable column.) However, with a CSS hack the number of cells shown in a row can differ from the formal number of cells. For example, two formal cells can be shown as one by specifying a width for the first column, shifting the contents of the second cell to the left, increasing its width by the same amount, and hiding the cell border that would normally be visible. Hidden sort keys can be used to control the sort order of particular rows with respect to each column.

Example:

Country	Capital
France	Paris
Z	M Sorting with respect to the first column this row sorts like Z, with respect to the second column like M
U.K.	London

Static column

A static column, e.g. with row numbers, can be obtained with two side-by-side tables with for each row the same height set in both tables:

Number 1 2

Country Capital The Netherlands Amsterdam (although The Hague is the seat of government) France Paris

The style can be adjusted to make it appear as a single table. If for some row the height of that row is too small for the text in a cell on one of the sides, the browser increases it, and there is no longer a match.

Default order

It is not possible to make a table appear sorted by a certain column without the user clicking on it. By default, the rows of a table always appear in the same order as in the wikitext. If you want a table to appear sorted by a certain column, you must sort the wikitext itself in that order; see the next section for one way to do this.

Sorting the wikitext of a table

Sorting the wikitext itself, thus creating a new default sort order, can be done semi-automatically as follows. Take the wikitext of the table without top and bottom lines. Use "find and replace" to replace the cell separators with special code not containing "|". If there are pipes in the table cells, replace all pipes by some code, and replace that code with a newline in front of it (originating from the code for the start of a new row) back. Apply mw:Module:Sort (see mw:Module talk:Sort) at mw:Special:ExpandTemplates by putting: {{#invoke:Sort|f|{{!}}-
{{!}} (with the newline) before, and }} after the wikitext, to sort the items between the pipes, with the desired separator in the result. Discard the items at the start containing "-" and a newline. Restore the cell separators and the pipes in the cells by replacing the temporary codes for them. Readd the top and bottom lines.

This method sorts by the wikitext of the rows, so in principal by the first column (and the second as secondary key), although wikitext codes in the cells of the first column before the content can affect the order.

See Help:Sorting#Maintaining tables sorted by rank for sorting tables by a different column.

Using JavaScript to trigger client-side table sorting

An addition to MediaWiki:Common.js can be used to "re-sort" a table automatically on the client side when the page loads (as if the user had clicked the header.) The example below sorts all the tables on a set of pages by the first column (see the Tablesorter documentation for syntax.)

Note : This appears to break sorting by clicking on headers. It sorts ascending on the clicked on header, but won't sort the other way when clicked on again

function isSortedTablePage() {
    return ( wgPageName == "Page_To_Sort"  || wgPageName == "Other_Page_To_Sort" );
}

jQuery( document ).ready( function( $ ) {
    // wrapped in "mw.loader.using" so this doesn't execute until Tablesorter has loaded
    mw.loader.using( 'jquery.tablesorter', function() {
        if( isSortedTablePage() ) $('table.sortable').tablesorter( {sortList: [ { 0: 'asc'} ]} )
        // or look for tables with an ID attribute of "sortMe" on any page
        // $( '#sortMe' ).tablesorter( {sortList: [ { 0: 'asc'} ]} )
    } );
} );

Basic alphabetic sorting order

demo
!
"
#
$
%
&
'
(
)
*
+
,
-
.
/
0
9
:
;
<
=
>
?
@
[
\
]
^
_
`
A
Z
a
z
A1
Z1
a1
z1
{
|
}
~
É
é
É1
é1
—

The two-character entries such as A1 demonstrate that A and a are at the same position.

This is not a fully alphabetic sort order: letter case is first folded to lowercase using a basic 1-to-1 conversion table (limited to the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode, and whose coverage and completeness still depends on browser versions and on their current implementation of the versioned Unicode Character Database), but letters with diacritics (and all other digits, symbols or special whitespaces or format control characters) will still sort according to the binary encoding of the casefolded letter, using the binary order of the UTF-16 code units (exposed and seen in Javascript through the parsed HTML DOM), but not the binary order of UTF-8 code units in the HTML page, and not of codepoints as one could also expect for encoded characters in supplementary planes).

In addition, no normalization of the Unicode text is being performed (so canonically equivalent strings, that should compare equal or with only very minor binary difference, may sometimes compare very far away, with completely different strings interleaved between them). For this reason, MediaWiki pages should always be encoded with their text in the Normalized Form C (preComposed), as recommended in the HTML standards.

As of today, an UCA-based sort is still not implemented in the client-side Javascript code, but some wikis are implementing a limited form of multilevel collation using custom basic replacement rules tuned for specific languages.

Server issue

It has been observed that the MediaWiki code on the server replaces a regular space before "!" by a non-breaking space  , affecting the sorting order. To avoid this, this blank space can be coded as  , or the exclamation mark may be surrounded by <nowiki> and </nowiki> tags. This is to comply with French typographic rules, where exclamation marks (and a few other punctuations) must be preceded (or sometimes followed) by a space (preferably narrow) which must still be unbreakable when it is effectively needed and present, the substitution being performed as an convenient editing facility of the Wiki code for cases that are very frequent within many texts.

Persistent sort states using cookies

Adding this snippet to your MediaWiki:Common.js page will make the sortable tables remember their columns sort states in a cookie so they look the same next time the page is visited. Each sortable table must have a unique id attribute for its state to be stored in the cookie.

addOnloadHook( function() {
    jQuery('.sortable').each( function() {
        var id = jQuery(this).attr('id');
        document.shCookie = getCookie('sortheader-'+id);
        document.sortheaderId = 0;
        jQuery('#'+id+' a.sortheader').each( function() {
            var id = jQuery(this).parent().parent().parent().parent().attr('id');
            var sh = document.sortheaderId++;
            if( sh+100 == document.shCookie ) { ts_resortTable(this); ts_resortTable(this); }
            if( sh == document.shCookie ) { ts_resortTable(this); sh += 100; }
            jQuery(this).bind('click', {id: id, sh: sh}, function(e) {
                setCookie('sortheader-'+e.data.id, e.data.sh, 1);
                e.data.sh += e.data.sh < 100 ? 100 : -100;
            });
        });
    });
});

function setCookie(c_name,value,exdays) {
    var exdate=new Date();
    exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate() + exdays);
    var c_value=escape(value) + ((exdays==null) ? "" : "; expires="+exdate.toUTCString());
    document.cookie=c_name + "=" + c_value;
}

function getCookie(c_name) {
    var i,x,y,ARRcookies=document.cookie.split(";");
    for (i=0;i<ARRcookies.length;i++) {
        x=ARRcookies[i].substr(0,ARRcookies[i].indexOf("="));
        y=ARRcookies[i].substr(ARRcookies[i].indexOf("=")+1);
        x=x.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g,"");
        if (x==c_name) return unescape(y);
    }
}

See also

• Help:Table
• w:Category:Sorting templates
• jquery.tablesorter.js - sorting code
• phab:tag/mediawiki-jquery-tablesorter/ Tablesorter Workboard for bugs and improvments
• http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/sorttable/ - explanation of the original version of the code by Stuart Langridge; an improvement in the MediaWiki version is that tables no longer need to have an id.
• mw:Help:Sorting
• mw:Extension:Sort2 generates sorted lists based on existing token lists.

Examples elsewhere:

• w:Ranked list of Dutch provinces
• w:List of countries by GDP estimates for 2006 (nominal)
• w:List of countries by GDP (PPP), 2006
• w:List of longest reigning current monarchs - date columns are sortable for people with "no preference" for date formatting, and for people with preference [[YYYY-MM-DD]].
• Pokémon table - prefixes numbers with "#" to have them before "-".
• Nuclear power by country (Featured List)
• w:Desert Island Discs: castaways' choices
• zh:秘鲁行政区划 (Subdivisions of Peru) for sorting of Chinese (CJK)
• w:Standard electrode potential (data page)‎

Links to other help pages

Help contents

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Versions of this help page (for other languages see further)

What links here on Meta or from Meta · Wikipedia · MediaWiki

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Logging in and preferences

Logging in · Preferences

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Starting a new page · Advanced editing · Editing FAQ · Export · Import · Shortcuts · Edit conflict · Page size

Referencing

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Style and formatting

Wikitext examples · CSS · Reference card · HTML in wikitext · Formula · Lists · Table · Sorting · Colors · Images and file uploads

Fixing mistakes

Show preview · Reverting edits

Advanced functioning

Expansion · Template · Advanced templates · Parser function · Parameter default · Magic words · System message · Substitution · Array · Calculation · Transclusion

Others

Special characters · Renaming (moving) a page · Preparing a page for translation · Talk page · Signatures · Sandbox · Legal issues for editors