Help:Sorting

Tables can now be made sortable via JavaScript. Any table with class="sortable" has arrows in each of its header cells. Clicking them will cause the table rows to sort based on the selected column, in ascending order first, and subsequently toggling between ascending and descending order.

The sorting modes are:

string (ASCII) - partial list showing the order: !"#$%&'()*+,-./09:;<=>?@AZ[\]^_'az{|}~
- for numbers the most relevant are: +,-.0123456789Ee
numeric (just digits, or digits and a decimal point)
currency
date (DD-MM-YYYY or DD-MM-YY), see below

The sorting mode is determined by the table element that is currently in the first row below the header (thus it may change after sorting, which can give a cycle of four or even more instead of two).

A table element consisting of just digits, or digits and a decimal point, is considered numeric. A negative number and a number in scientific notation are not recognized as number in determining the sorting mode, but if numeric sorting is used, these numbers are properly numerically sorted. Numbers with spaces or commas are treated as strings. If all numbers in a column are non-negative, alphabetic sorting can be made to correspond with numeric sorting by leading zeros, or " " codes which render as blank spaces, typically giving a visually more attractive result.

Links and other wiki-markup do not seem possible in headers.

Dates

For dates the sorting mode is based on the rendered date format. Unfortunately none of the standard formats for the date formatting feature matches either of the formats giving sorting mode "date". Thus if dates are entered in one of these standard formats the sorting mode is "string"; only for format YYYY-MM-DD string sorting corresponds to chronological sorting.

Thus the cases where we get chronological sorting include:

the wikitext uses any standard format for the date formatting feature, and the date format set in the preferences is [[YYYY-MM-DD]]
the wikitext uses format [[YYYY-MM-DD]], and the date format in the preferences is not set (this includes anon users) or set to "no preference", or set to [[YYYY-MM-DD]]
format DD-MM-[[YYYY]] (not recommended, except on wikis which abandon the date formatting feature in favor of this format)

Thus, users setting the preference [[YYYY-MM-DD]] and using as editor the wikitext format [[YYYY-MM-DD]] make all tables using the standard formats for the date formatting feature sortable for themselves, while making their tables sortable both for people with "no preference" and people with preference [[YYYY-MM-DD]].

If a table column contains also, or only, incomplete dates of the form [[YYYY]]-MM, this does not give complications: such an incomplete date is positioned alphabetically between the first day of the month concerned and the previous day.

If a table column contains only incomplete dates of the form [[YYYY]], this does not give complications either.

If a table column contains also, but not only, incomplete dates of the form YYYY, we have to distinguish two cases:

if at some point (i.e., after possible previous sorting) the form [[YYYY-MM-DD]] or [[YYYY]]-MM is at the top, sorting works fine: alphabetically, with [[YYYY]] positioned between the first day of the year concerned and the previous day.
if at some point the form [[YYYY]] is at the top, sorting is numerical; in this case there is no proper sorting within each year .

Sorting examples

Province	Population	Area (km²)	Density	GDP(PPS in mil. € 2003)	GDP per cap. (in € 2003)
South Holland	3,453,000	2,860	1,207.3	95,868	27,825
a	2,583,900	2,660	971.4	65,295	27,169
Utrecht	1,159,200	1,356	854.9	38,355	33,148
Limburg	1,143,000	2,167	527.5	28,038	24,585
North Brabant	2,406,900	4,938	487.4	65,295	27,169
Gelderland	1,967,600	4,995	393.9	45,043	22,942
Netherlands	16,254,800	41,525	391.4	440,167	27,132
Overijssel	1,105,800	3,337	331.4	25,854	23,441
Flevoland	356,400	1,426	249.9	6,915	19,439
Groningen	575,900	2,344	245.7	18,496	32,245
Zeeland	378,300	1,792	211.1	9,354	24,706
Friesland	642,500	3,361	191.2	13,989	21,830
Drenthe	482,300	2,652	181.9	10,323	21,427

Other examples:

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]].

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Dates

Sorting examples

See also

Links to other help pages