Sorting

[Tom]

I have used the Sort feature many time, but I'm stumbled now...

I try to sort the data (which is in "Text" format) on column A. This is
the sorted data subset.

1.1
2
2.1
2.2
3.2
1.1.2
5.1.1


My question: Why is "1.1.2" the only value that is out of order?

 

[Jeff]

Tom,

It's because even though the cells are formatted
as text, the first 5 entries are seen as decimal
numbers and the last two (1.1.2 and 5.1.1) are
interpreted as text (there IS no decimal value with
multiple periods).

These latter two will be sorted in a left-to-right
ascii character fashion, I believe - at my work
we had software versions like 04.01.98, 04.01.99,
04.01.101; when sorted, 04.01.101 was down with the
04.01.10 and 04.01.13's; I had to pad the last sub-
build to 3 digits for proper sorting (04.01.98 became
043.01.098).

good luck.
jeff

 

[Tom]

Jeff,

ah, that makes sense... thanks for sharing this w/ me. I'll do some
research to see if "padding" will work for me, too.