Help talk:Sortable tables/Archive 1

Reverse order sort
How do I reverse order sort based on the order of the items in the list? I want to reverse the order of the items irrespective of date, currency, numeric, or string, but only by how the items first appear on the list. XP1 (talk) 23:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Date sorting improvements
wikibits.js can be improved to include more date formats and trim leading/trailing spaces from dates. I've taken a stab at a couple of improvements outlined below if (/^\d\d[\/. -][a-zA-Z]{3}[\/. -]\d\d\d\d$/.test(itm)) { to if (/^\d\d[\/. -]?[a-zA-Z]{3}[\/. -]?\d\d\d\d$/.test(itm)) { Add the following before the first line of "ts_dateToSortKey" date= date.replace(/^\s\s*/, ).replace(/\s\s*$/, ); if (date.length ==9){ date = date.substr(0,2)+" " + date.substr(2,3)+" "+ date.substr(5); } --Bala (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Dates of the form "DD MMM YYY" can also look like "DDMMMYYYY". This can be fixed by changing the line
 * Dates should be trimmed before sorting dates of the format "DDMMMYYYY" should be sorted

Possible improvement for Template:Dts
I saw that Dts was copied from m:Template:Dts. Help:Sorting is pretty cool stuff. But since I'm a lazy programmer and wikieditor, I'm always looking for a way to cut corners. Check out User:MrDolomite/Sandbox/Dts and let me know what you all think. &mdash; MrDolomite | Talk 18:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's caused a couple problems already, and we have the opportunity to fix them before it gets used everywhere and there's lots of fixin' to do. Check out Template Talk:Dts for more. —Wikibarista 18:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Sort key
Is it possible (or would it be possible) for cells to have a sort key different from that which is displayed? I want to make List of Liverpool F.C. players sortable, but for it to be useful I really need:

--ArtVandelay13 13:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * To sort the names by surname, firstname
 * To sort the flag icons by nation name
 * To sort the positions in the order of (roughly) GK, Defender, Midfielder, Forward.
 * No, sorry, that is not possible right now. The obvious solution to issue #1 is to make the displayed text itself in Last, First format. The obvious solution to issue #2 is to convey the information in words rather than with an image. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the best solution for sorting by images (e.g national flags) is to have images be sortable by alt text. Pimlottc 01:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please check out the discussion underway at Template talk:Sortname. You can use sortname today to solve the first problem, and sort or sortkey to solve the other two.  Andrwsc 00:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

colspan=2
The script, while ingenious, doesn't work very well with headers spanning over several columns, effectively screwing up List of members of the Riksdag, 2002-2006 by requiring a separate header for the colors (resulting in that column being unnecessarily wide). Solution, anyone? Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 21:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 2 1/2 years later and this is still an issue?—NMajdan &bull;talk 04:45, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Tables not being sorted
For some reason I'm no longer able to get tables in WP to obey the instruction. Is this a known problem? JavaScript is not disabled on my system.

It must be something to do with my WP Preferences, because the problem disappears when I log out. I don't remember changing anything in the Prefs, however: any suggestions? I've tried bypassing my cache, but that didn't help.

What would I need to do (or have done) to disable the "sortable" property on my computer? -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * PS What I really meant is: the buttons don't appear at the top of the columns. When I log out they do appear, & the table sorts correctly.  -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It's OK: I've got to the root of the problem, which was in my monobook.js. Panic over! -- NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I get exactly the same problem. If I'm logged in then "sortable" just seems to be ignored. If I log out or empty my monobook.js then it works. Does anybody have more information on what we need to fix in monobook.js to get sortable tables to work.-- Mark S (talk) 07:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Found the problem. I use the Extra Edit Buttons script. This had a function with the name getElementsByClassName which prevented sortable tables from working. I guess, therefore, that the sortable script also has the same function name. I've change extra edit buttons to use a different name. I guess though that other scripts could also include a function with this name so watch out. -- Mark S (talk) 21:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Same problem here, but no matter what I disable in my preferences or remove from my monobook.js, the problem is still there. Any suggestions?  --Addingrefs  ( talk | contribs ) 17:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: Tables are sorted when I log out, but when I log in it just jumps to the top of the page. --Addingrefs ( talk | contribs ) 17:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sortkeys
I started a discussion at Template talk:Sort, since there seem to be a number of unconnected efforts to create sortkeys for sortable wikitables. ~ trialsanderrors 23:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

number sorting
I've read this page and looked at the code in the example table, but I don't quite get what is the best way to get numbers of varying lengths to sort properly (i.e. for 17,000,000 to show up as larger than 900,000). In particular, I would like to fix the attendance numbers at List of sports attendance figures. Thanks for any help. — Reinyday, 00:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Try the nts template! You would write  to render, and the sort keys would work as expected.  Andrwsc 00:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Excellent. Thanks! — Reinyday, 19:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

== ? David Latapie (✒ | @) — www 19:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

help
I need the correct code for Instructions_per_second anywere can help? -- FidelFair 04:13, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This seems to work:
 * {| class="prettytable sortable"

!style="background:#CCCCCC;" | Processor !style="background:#CCCCCC;" | IPS !style="background:#CCCCCC;" | Year !style="background:#CCCCCC;" | Source
 * Pencil and Paper||0.0119 IPS||1892||
 * IBM System/370 model 158-3||1 MIPS||1972||
 * Intel 8080||640 kIPS at 2 MHz||1974||
 * VAX 11/780||500 kIPS||1977||
 * Motorola 68000||1 MIPS at 8 MHz||1979||
 * Intel 386DX||8.5 MIPS at 25 MHz||1988||
 * Intel 486DX||54 MIPS at 66 MHz||1992||
 * PowerPC 600s (G2)||35 MIPS at 33 MHz||1994||
 * Intel Pentium Pro||541 MIPS at 200 MHz||1996||
 * ARM 7500FE||35.9 MIPS at 40 MHz||1996||
 * PowerPC G3||525 MIPS at 233 MHz||1997||
 * Zilog eZ80||80 MIPS at 50 MHz||1999||
 * Intel Pentium III||1354 MIPS at 500 MHz||1999||
 * AMD Athlon||3561 MIPS at 1.2 GHz||2000||
 * AMD Athlon XP 2400+||5935 MIPS at 2.0 GHz||2002||
 * Pentium 4 Extreme Edition||9726 MIPS at 3.2 GHz||2003||
 * ARM Cortex A8||2000 MIPS at 1.0 GHz|| 2005||
 * Xbox360 IBM "Xenon" Triple Core||6400 MIPS at 3.2 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon FX-57||12000 MIPS at 2.8 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon 64 3800+ X2 (Dual Core)||14564 MIPS at 2.0 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon FX-60 (Dual Core)||18938 MIPS at 2.6 GHz||2006||
 * Intel Core 2 X6800||27079 MIPS at 2.93 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell one SPE||25600 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell one PPE||51200 MIPS (38400 MFLOPS)at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell BE (1PPE + 8SPEs)||256000 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||At page33 in |
 * SONY PS3 (1PPE + 7SPEs)||230400 MIPS (217600 MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700||57063 MIPS at 3.33 GHz||2006||
 * }
 * Enjoy. —EncMstr 19:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * thx --FidelFair 09:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Pentium 4 Extreme Edition||9726 MIPS at 3.2 GHz||2003||
 * ARM Cortex A8||2000 MIPS at 1.0 GHz|| 2005||
 * Xbox360 IBM "Xenon" Triple Core||6400 MIPS at 3.2 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon FX-57||12000 MIPS at 2.8 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon 64 3800+ X2 (Dual Core)||14564 MIPS at 2.0 GHz||2005||
 * AMD Athlon FX-60 (Dual Core)||18938 MIPS at 2.6 GHz||2006||
 * Intel Core 2 X6800||27079 MIPS at 2.93 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell one SPE||25600 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell one PPE||51200 MIPS (38400 MFLOPS)at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell BE (1PPE + 8SPEs)||256000 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||At page33 in |
 * SONY PS3 (1PPE + 7SPEs)||230400 MIPS (217600 MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700||57063 MIPS at 3.33 GHz||2006||
 * }
 * Enjoy. —EncMstr 19:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * thx --FidelFair 09:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * IBM Cell one SPE||25600 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell one PPE||51200 MIPS (38400 MFLOPS)at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * IBM Cell BE (1PPE + 8SPEs)||256000 MIPS (MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||At page33 in |
 * SONY PS3 (1PPE + 7SPEs)||230400 MIPS (217600 MFLOPS) at 3.2 GHz||2006||
 * Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700||57063 MIPS at 3.33 GHz||2006||
 * }
 * Enjoy. —EncMstr 19:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * thx --FidelFair 09:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700||57063 MIPS at 3.33 GHz||2006||
 * }
 * Enjoy. —EncMstr 19:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * thx --FidelFair 09:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * thx --FidelFair 09:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

collapsable + sortable?
Is it possible to get a collapsable and sortable table? ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ 12:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Apparently. --Van helsing 09:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * or tables in tables.

Numeric sorting doesn't work
I've made a sortable wikitable for a "crimes against humanity" table, here, but I couldn't get the estimates columns to sort properly. I know what the problem is in part, which is that because there are references together with the estimates in the first cell, the sort table reads as an alphabetic table instead of a numeric one.

The Help page says you just have to finish your cell with the code "sm=n" to make the sorting in such cases numeric, but it doesn't work. I found another way of making the table work by creating hidden rows at the top and bottom of the table with very high and low numbers respectively, but it's a kludgy fix and doesn't work right under all conditions.

Can someone please show me how to get this "sm=n" method to work? Thanks, Gatoclass 16:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It requires the relevant code in m:MediaWiki:Common.js to be copied to MediaWiki:Common.js.--Patrick 23:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you know how to do that? I have no idea. Gatoclass 23:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not difficult to do (for a sysop like me) but it requires consensus. You can propose it at MediaWiki talk:Common.js. Even better for maintainability is that such changes are made in wikibits.js. You can support my proposal to allow negative numbers and other features at 8115.--Patrick 08:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It appears that the "sm=n" method was proposed to fix this problem, but never actually implemented. 13535 was filed asking for the "sm=n" support, but that solution was rejected in favor of finding a better general syntax, which is being discussed in 15406. --fjarlq (talk) 09:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sorting properly
I have added the sm=n to the List of Aston Villa F.C. players article but the goals and appearances sections are still not listing properly. For the appearances section anyway it seems to be those numbers that are under 100. Can anyone help? Thanks Woodym555 14:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. I needed the nts template. Woodym555 18:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Generic sorting template?

 * This question was moved here from the "Wikipedia-specific help" section in the help page:

I am trying to create number parameters for sorting. (Ex. sorting_table|table1|5|10, 5 being the number of rows and 10 being the number of colums). Is that even possible? I would like to be able to add or remove rows so a generic sorting template can be used for many different articles. The articles will have similar information but different names.

-- Ricky.Garcia 16:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

All demos work on meta but some fail on this copy
I just thought I should point out that as of time of writing some of the examples don't work in this version of the page (the initial sort is incorrect although second and subsequent sorts are correct) although they do on the meta original, so I guess something needs updating. --80.175.250.218 08:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorting not functioning correctly
Can someone please look at the table here and check why the goal difference column does not sort correctly? Thanks in advance. Madcynic 10:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorting a column with negative numbers works on Meta, where a bug was fixed, but the developers have not fixed it yet for MediaWiki in general (8115), and changes in MediaWiki:Common.js raise concerns about maintainability of the code. Anyway you would have to use a regular hyphen as minus sign. See also the version of the help page applicable without modifications of the JavaScript for workarounds.--Patrick 11:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Another sorting anomoly
Hi! I recently created my first table, which a fellow editor converted to a sorting table. Problem is, we're seeing different things when we click the sort buttons! He's getting proper sorting in all columns, while only the first column sorts (ascending/descending) for me&mdash;regardless of which column's header I click on. Why would that be? The page in question is WikiProject_Birds/Country_lists. I'm on Mac OSX10.4.10, using Safari. Help! MeegsC | Talk 13:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I heard that before, I added that at m:Help:Sorting.--Patrick 13:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Safari/Webkit hasn't had this problem for a while now. Prominent mention this past problem may now seem to be disinformation. --dvdrtrgn (talk) 17:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hide someting
Hi,

I would like to know if it's possible to hide something in a sorting table.

Ex:

How I can sort byu last name

Thank! Riba en (talk) 20:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * See Template:Sortname.--Patrick (talk) 00:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Date sorting not working properly - please help
Could anyone tell me why this table is not sorting properly? We want to be able to sort by date. Various people over here have said that the sorting does not work for them. Thank you, Fang Aili talk 03:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's working exactly as it should: lexicographically.  It sorts by day month year because that's the order you've written them.  If you want to sort by date, write the dates as 2007-07-09 for example.  Somewhere there's a template which displays one thing but sorts by another value.  I'll look for it.  —EncMstr 03:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It appeared from the example on Help:Sorting that dates could be sorted without having to put them in the YYYY-MM-DD format. But I could not figure out what it was, or if I was misunderstanding completely. --Fang Aili talk 03:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Use this instead: dts.  Use it as   in place of the date values.  It produces an invisible sortable date and displays it formatted correctly according to user preferences.  —EncMstr 03:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, EncMstr. It looks like dts is my best bet. I really dislike introducing useless wikidate links, though. --Fang Aili talk 04:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't think of them as links. Think of them as variables.  That way I can see dates formatted the way I expect, and you can see what you expect via your preferences.  —EncMstr 05:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorting column with any negative numbers
When I have a column with a negative number, it sorts ok ascendingly, but sorts alphabetically descendingly. Is this a javascript problem? I've tried so many suggestions - none have worked --JimWae (talk) 08:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Demographics of Queens e.g. - I've tried, removing % signs, even put a 0 in blank cell - no joy --JimWae (talk) 08:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * EVEN ascending is wrong on 1st click, OK on 3rd --JimWae (talk) 08:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Date sorting (day/month)
I was hoping to use dates in a sortable table without specifying the year (i.e. 1 January), but I can't figure out how to do it and get the table to sort properly. I tried Dts, but year seems to be a requirement. Any help would be appreciated! PC78 (talk) 21:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Rows/headers above sortable row
I'd like to add a header above the sortable row on the table in the Statewide polling article. Basically, above the first Clinton/Obama/Other columns I'd like to add a "Polling data" column (with colspan="3") and above the second Clinton/Obama/Other columns I'd like to add a "Delegates won" column (with colspan="3"). The "Date", "State", and "Delegates" column would ideally be modified to have rowspan="2". Can anyone help me do this? Andareed (talk) 22:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorting numbers
Clicking the sort button messes up this table by sorting the numbers by digit rather than by number. How do I make it recognize that 10 is bigger than 2? Is there a parameter that makes it look at numbers differently? Thanks. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Never mind. I solved it by adding invisible zeros.  I even found a template that does it for me: 0.  --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Another technique is to use the sort template:
 * {| class="sortable"

!Number of years
 * 1 year
 * 2 years
 * 5 years
 * 10 years
 * 20 years
 * 25 years
 * }
 * sort takes two parameters:  what to sort by what to display .  I thought it was smarter about accepting numbers, but to make the example work, I used leading zeros so a lexicographic sort works okay.  Perhaps there's another form of the sort template which deals with numbers more intuitively.  —EncMstr 05:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 20 years
 * 25 years
 * }
 * sort takes two parameters:  what to sort by what to display .  I thought it was smarter about accepting numbers, but to make the example work, I used leading zeros so a lexicographic sort works okay.  Perhaps there's another form of the sort template which deals with numbers more intuitively.  —EncMstr 05:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * }
 * sort takes two parameters:  what to sort by what to display .  I thought it was smarter about accepting numbers, but to make the example work, I used leading zeros so a lexicographic sort works okay.  Perhaps there's another form of the sort template which deals with numbers more intuitively.  —EncMstr 05:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorting when column items encompass multiple rows?
How can this be done? Example: Opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008 --Kallahan (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Several solutions come to mind using the sort template. The daunting part is defining what sorting some of those columns should do. —EncMstr 01:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Can someone make this sortable? Kallahan (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Does this mean it can't be done? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kallahan (talk • contribs) 18:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the straightfoward change appears okay at first (below), but a click on any of the sort handles makes it fall apart immediately.
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! Poll Source ! Date administered ! Democrat ! % ! Republican ! %
 * - valign=bottom
 * rowspan=2 | Rasmussen Reports Tracking
 * rowspan=2 | March 25-28, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 40%
 * John McCain
 * 51%
 * Barack Obama
 * 43%
 * John McCain
 * 48%
 * rowspan=2 | Gallup Tracking
 * rowspan=2 | March 24-28, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 48%
 * Barack Obama
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 46%
 * rowspan=2 | NBC News/Wall Street Journal
 * rowspan=2 | March 24-25, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 46%
 * Barack Obama
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 42%
 * rowspan=2 | Pew Research Center
 * rowspan=2 | March 19-22, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 49%
 * John McCain
 * 44%
 * Barack Obama
 * 49%
 * John McCain
 * 43%
 * rowspan=2 | Fox News/Opinion Dynamics
 * rowspan=2 | March 18-19, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 46%
 * John McCain
 * 43%
 * Barack Obama
 * 43%
 * John McCain
 * 44%
 * rowspan=2 | CBS News
 * rowspan=2 | March 15-18, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 46%
 * John McCain
 * 44%
 * Barack Obama
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 46%
 * }
 * I'm at a loss how to remedy that, though this comes to mind:
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"
 * Hillary Clinton
 * 46%
 * John McCain
 * 44%
 * Barack Obama
 * 44%
 * John McCain
 * 46%
 * }
 * I'm at a loss how to remedy that, though this comes to mind:
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! Poll Source !! Date administered !! Democrat !! % !! Republican !! %
 * - valign=bottom
 * Rasmussen Reports Tracking
 * March 25-28, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 40% 43%
 * John McCain
 * 51%
 * Gallup Tracking
 * March 24-28, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 44% 44%
 * John McCain
 * 48% 46%
 * NBC News/Wall Street Journal
 * March 24-25, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 44% 44%
 * John McCain
 * 46% 42%
 * Pew Research Center
 * March 19-22, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 49%
 * John McCain
 * 44% 43%
 * Fox News/Opinion Dynamics
 * March 18-19, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 46% 43%
 * John McCain
 * 43%
 * CBS News
 * March 15-18, 2008
 * Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
 * 46% 44%
 * John McCain
 * 44% 46%
 * }
 * Probably unsuitable, even if my mistakes were fixed.... —EncMstr 18:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually that's brilliant. I'm going to propose it and credit you for the idea. Thanks! --Kallahan (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 46% 44%
 * John McCain
 * 44% 46%
 * }
 * Probably unsuitable, even if my mistakes were fixed.... —EncMstr 18:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually that's brilliant. I'm going to propose it and credit you for the idea. Thanks! --Kallahan (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Help!!!!
I have started a wikitable using this format and I'm way over my head now. I want to display the endorsements for presidential candidates in the GOP 2012 race. Check it here Endorsements for the Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012 Unfortunately, the numbers are easier to place than the names. I want to put the names in collapsible rows so people can read the numbers and verify the endorsements by checking a row below. Please help. :-< -- Sc r ew ba ll 23 talk 02:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Firstly descending
I think that my question is very simple but I couldn't find the answer myself... Is it possible to add some parameter that with one click table would be sorted in a descending order? Niktute (talk) 22:43, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not understand. Is there a particular table you are trying to do this on? Can you link to it? Maybe a sandbox page on one of your user subpages. User:Niktute/Sandbox2


 * Columns are sorted by clicking the sorting icon. It alternates between ascending and descending. So sometimes it takes 2 clicks. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, now it takes two clicks and it works very well... But I was interested maybe it's possible to set some parameter (because ususaly there is one) that I would get the same result with one click?
 * i.e. if the table is about the number of victories for some players, then ascending order is not realy interesting. Niktute (talk) 21:26, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Like Timeshifter, I do not understand the question. If the natural order of a table is descending by victories, creating the table that way seems the simplest solution. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I understand the question and — if I do — it is whether there is an option to control whether a given column of a table is in ascendending or descending order when the page loads. — Robert Greer (talk) 03:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I made table sortable because there are a lot of columns that may be interesting to sort by. So, initialy I sorted my table by one column and users themselves can sort by others... now for some columns ir takes one click to make an "interesting" sorting but for other columns user needs to click twice. As I said, it's not a problem but it would be more elegant if I can set a pereferable order of sorting. Niktute (talk) 11:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

List of India Twenty20 International cricketers
There is a problem while sorting the "HS" column in this article. A few en-dashes come before "0". I'm unable to figure out the problem. Any help will be much appreciated. &mdash; Commander (Ping me) 17:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the asterisks/stars (*) beside some of the entries in that column are causing the problem. What is the * for (I can't seem to find a footnote to match it)? Cheers! Facts707 (talk) 19:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * On closer look, it looks like the problem has already been solved. Facts707 (talk) 20:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone fix List of countries by net international investment position?
Hi, all. I can't seem to get the table at List of countries by net international investment position to order by the "NIIP in % GDP" column as numeric - it always sorts it as characters instead.

All the entries in that column are numeric. Some have a leading plus sign, leading minus, and/or a leading zero, and many have references. But this should not bother the numeric sorting.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Facts707 (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It's the references. These are not numeric data, so cause the cells in which they are placed to be considered as text; and so the column as a whole is sorted as text. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorting latitude/longitude
I was working with List of maria on the Moon. Is there any reasonable way to sort latitude and longitude numerically instead of alphabetically? For example, getting it to treat °N as a negative number and °S as positive so the list would start with the northernmost entry and end with the most southerly. Thanks! Aubri (talk) 18:52, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You might try to manually enter appropriate sort terms as non-displaying data. I have used the template Hs for this; there may be others. I would enter every latitude/longitude value in the following fashion:


 * Good luck. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:00, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Rowspan
I was trying to use a sortable table with one of the headers extending the length of the table. Here is the table: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:B2project/sandbox2&oldid=487749544 User:B2project/sandbox2]

I'd like to keep the table sortable so I can change the order to determine leaders and would like to keep the break in it to clean up the table but I can't seem to get the header row to extend the rest of the table. Does anyone know if this is possible? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

♣ B2project ♣ (Talk) 23:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The table is sortable, but dunno why, but the "sorting symbol" is not displayed, simply click next to the cell description and it sorts correctly. I will dig around if I can find the problem why this symbol is not displayed correctly.  mabdul 20:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)


 * As noted above at, the workaround is to use 'background-color' instead of 'background', but this only works for the red cells, the arrows are the same black color as the black background you are using. Perhaps change from black to something dark instead? Elizium23 (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorting missing values to be at end both ascending and descending
I see this was answered a couple of years ago, but in case anything has changed I'll ask again:
 * is there a way to make a particular row sort to the bottom on a particular column both when the sort is ascending and when it's descending?

I want to include a "X see Y" crossref in column 1, which is a list of names of hills where just a couple have two names, but I then don't want "X" to have any content in the other cols and want it to sort down to the bottom. Can it be done? (The Outlying Fells of Lakeland, "Cartmel Fell see Raven's Barrow", if you're interested in the exact example). Pam D  14:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * To do that you'd need to ensure that it has both the highest value of the set and the lowest value. Unless every value in the set is identical, this is a logical impossibility. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorting section replaced
I've replaced the section "Initial alphabetical sort versus initial sort by rank order" because it was suggesting people remove rank columns and sort lists alphabetically, because it would make the list easier to update. This is inappropriate as it suggests removing a useful feature for readers in order to accommodate to editors. I have instead put together a how-to on updating lists sorted by rank. Pristino (talk) 11:25, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * And I reverted your removal of longstanding info. Feel free to create a new section on maintaining rank order. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * And in the process you removed what I had just added. I've since restored that information without removing yours, even though I disagree with it. Pristino (talk) 00:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It can be difficult and time consuming to figure out which edits to revert. Or to go back to an old revision, copy wikitext, and paste in the new page. Maybe if I had more time available yesterday I might have done that. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:30, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Sortable table issues
Hi, I'm having some issues with a sortable table that I'm working on here. It looks nice, but it doesn't sort! I also tried this, which looks good at the beginning, but once it's sorted, the pictures move with the Snake River row and mess up the formatting. Anyway, what I'm trying to do is have a functional sortable table with images on the right side that don't move at all. Any thoughts? Thanks,  Little  Mountain  5   14:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's possible (or desirable) to have a table where one column stays static whilst the others are sorted. Having a second, parallel table springs to mind as an alternative solution but it would be ugly and I don't know if it's technically possible. If you really have to have this column of thumbnails on the right (I'm concerned that it's more decorative than informative) perhaps put them in a Template:Sidebar (or some similar template) and transclude that next to the table? bobrayner (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You're probably right. I'll fool around with it some more, but I'll probably end up doing something like this. Ah well, thanks.  Little  Mountain  5   15:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Good luck. Have fun! bobrayner (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I used a workaround by taking the images out of the table and using two columns instead. It seems to work, but it might lead to accessibility issues down the road... we'll see.  Little  Mountain  5   23:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Static column limit?
I am unable to make the static column work on List of chess grandmasters - it appears to have a limit of 200? I've also posted on that template's talk page, so please rather answer there so that anyone else looking can find it one place. Greenman (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Numerical sorting and references
Currently, this help document explicitly states "References and reference notes after numbers do not break numerical sorting of a column. See: List of sovereign states by public debt.". However, when I was trying to fix a sorting issue with a table, the only way I can seem to make it work is to take out the references. The example given also doesn't actually seem to have any references. Am I missing something, or is the advice simply wrong? 80 Ursae Majoris (talk) 21:17, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I removed that link. It currently does not have any clickable references directly after numbers. What table are you working on? There are many things that can break numerical sorting. Do not waste your time trying to make date columns sort. That is broken last time I checked. Year-only columns will sort if done correctly. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * References after numbers currently break numerical sorting of a column. See discussion and example farther down. I corrected the info in Help:Sorting in the section for numerical sorting problems. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:54, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Examples BROKEN
In current page as of 31 July 2012, all except three sort as text, even though many of them are labeled numerical. The three that sort as currency are the ones with $, €, and £. The ¥ sorts as text. I have verified this behavior on Windows 7 Professional running IE9 and Chrome20. NONE of the examples sorts numerically. I've submitted this as a bug as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mwengler (talk • contribs) 18:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorting help
The list Talk:List of college football coaches with 30 seasons has a sorting issue that I cannot seem to solve. Can someone peek at it please?--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:30, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Two sections up from here is a complaint that references prevent numeric sorting, and I think you are running into the same problem. The only way I could make the "Wins" column sort numerically was to remove the footnote from "Joe Paterno". I hope there's a better solution from that. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:58, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like you are right. Compare these versions:
 * Without reference in "Wins" column:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_college_football_coaches_with_30_seasons&oldid=472926090
 * With reference in "Wins" column:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_college_football_coaches_with_30_seasons&oldid=504184911
 * When one clicks the sort button the version with the reference does not sort correctly.


 * I corrected the info in Help:Sorting in the section for numerical sorting problems. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting, the Paterno footnotes were added after the sourt problem was detected.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:34, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Secondary sorting
In athletics results pages in events with multiple heats like the first table in 2009 Asian Athletics Championships – Men's 100 metres it is useful to sort the table by heats (2nd column) to see the results of each individual run but at the same time it should retain sorting by rank (1st column). Is there any way to achieve this? It should be noted that Heat 1 is always sorted this way, but in all others the sorting is semi-random. All such tables used to work properly in the past, but now they don't. Pietaster (talk) 12:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Help:Sorting —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:42, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorting tables with sort template

 * Note: Moved from Village pump (technical).

I thought I was getting the hang of sortable tables, but the table in User:Sphilbrick/sandbox isn't sorting the Diameter or Age columns correctly. Can anyone see what I did wrong?-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  18:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I see various problems. See Help:Sorting. You will get more help though at Help talk:Sorting. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * What, for example, did you see? I've read Help:sorting. Unless I'm missing something, that page is dated; it talks about the kludgey span style option, which I used years ago, but doesn't even mention the sort template-- SPhilbrick  (Talk)  19:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Try putting leading zeros into the sort value of sort to make them all 4 digit numbers. NtheP (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, just realized that. How crude.-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  19:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See Help:Sorting and the last few sections of Help talk:Sorting. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As both columns contain ranges then they will be treated as alpha sorts and need the leading zeros. NtheP (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Can we move this whole discussion to Help talk:Sorting where it will help a lot more people? Also, I have no clue how to do what you are talking about with sort. I haven't studied it enough. Can you link to a page with a table with a number column with ranges that works with it? --Timeshifter (talk) 22:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've no objection to moving this wherever you want. Sphilbrick's original example contains ranges and uses sort. NtheP (talk) 22:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

(unindent). OK. I see now. A number column using sort is actually using an alphabetical sort due to the use of characters other than numbers. Thus the need for the same number of characters in the sort value throughout the column. I added some info about sort to Help:Sorting. I linked to this discussion. Feel free to clarify the info there, here, and in the documentation for the template: Template:Sort/doc. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Ordinal Numbers
Is there a way to sort ordinal numbers so they appear in numerical order? Because of the addition of alpha characters, on many Category pages they appear as 10th, 100th, 101st, 102d, 11th, 1st. . . (not as 1st, 10th, 11th, 100th, 101st, 102d . . .  Lineagegeek (talk) 14:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Help:Sorting is about table sorting. Category sorting is a completely different feature. See Categorization. If all numbers are below 1000 then you can for example place a space in the sort key for two digit numbers so they sort before all 3-digit numbers. For 1-digit numbers the sort key can be the digit and nothing else if you want it listed first under the digit. You could also consider sort keys with a leading 0 so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are listed sequentially under the "0" heading. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

HTML5
Now that HTML5 is enabled,  will now work:

{

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the notification. This now resolves the issue mentioned earlier (Help talk:Sorting/Archive 4). I've implemented it (again) at . It also seems that dates written as "dd month yyyy" are sorted properly – mirabile visu. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * What also works is  btw. This forces a column, to use a specific type of sort algorithm. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 06:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

{|class="wikitable sortable" !Name and Surname!! data-sort-type="date" | Height

Beware though. There might still be a chance that HTML5 will be disabled, so I wouldn't start converting tables too quickly. No rush. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 06:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Since the novel attributes are utilised by JavaScript (not directly interpreted by the browser layout engine), does that mean that  and   will now work on all JavaScript-enabled browsers, even IE6+? (Assuming that HTML5 is not reverted.) — Richardguk (talk) 21:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The above sorting works with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 23:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(unindent). Is HTML 5 still enabled? Assuming that HTML 5 remains enabled where is there detailed info on data-sort-type?

Also on date sorting. Help:Sorting and meta:Help:Sorting have little info. meta:Help:Sorting says: "On English Wikipedias dates are treated as US-Dates (eg. month-day-year) per default." --Timeshifter (talk) 20:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Finally found it at meta:Help:Sorting:
 * text
 * number
 * date
 * IPAddress
 * currency
 * url
 * isoDate
 * usLongDate
 * time
 * The first three are documented at meta:Help:Sorting, but I don't see them in the jquery.tablesorter.js source. But that is on SVN— I will have to poke around on GIT and see if that is the current version. Hmmmm... how do I know what version is installed? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And yes, HTML5 is still enabled. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:55, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just checked the rendered HTML and that is the current version. It is based on the http://tablesorter.com code. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:10, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just checked the rendered HTML and that is the current version. It is based on the http://tablesorter.com code. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:10, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Documentation
Is this ready to be included in the Help:Sorting page? Any volunteers? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I added some info about  to the section on numerical sorting problems. Much more needs to be done. I can not find much info about  . I found some info about various forks of tablesorter:
 * http://tablesorter.com/docs/ - Version: 2.0.5.
 * http://mottie.github.com/tablesorter/docs/ - Version: 2.4 (forked from version 2.0.5).


 * I haven't read those pages in detail yet. I found this linked from there:
 * Disable or set the column parser using jQuery data.
 * That page says: "NOTE! This functionality was added in version 2.2.3 (it is not part of the original plugin)." It uses  in table headers at the level of the HTML. It looks like MediaWiki is using   instead. That is what I see in the source code for this page with some example tables: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox27. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Our version is a fork of tablesorter.com btw. Just so that is clear. And yes, we use data-sort-type. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 08:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Table not sorting
The stats section of 2005 Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team doesn't sort. Can someone fix it and tell me what I am missing. I have tried 50 different things. Thundrplaya (talk) 03:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
 * with this edit. Tables can only sort if the software knows there is a row of headers, and the headers have to be marked with exclamation marks rather than pipes. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Problem - Sorting isn't sorting any more
The table sorting function appears to be broken. (Took me about an hour looking for where I had screwed up on a table I was editing last night before I went to look at existing articles with known sortable tables, to find that none are sortable any longer...) André Kritzinger 14:34, 26 October 2012 (UTC) André Kritzinger 17:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like it's been repaired - sorting is sorting again.

Change sort arrow color?
Hi, Is there any way to change the sort arrow colors from the default black?

Thanks. Synthesized designs (talk) 14:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 16:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

List of current United Kingdom MPs
I wonder whether someone could help me please with sortability on the Party column. As this is not currently sortable (it uses party colours for a more aesthetically-pleasing effect), it throws out the sortability on the other columns too. Thanks in anticipation. Steve cov (talk) 20:07, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * . The trick is not to merge the colour header with the party name header cell. The tablesorter javascript gets confused if the number of cells in the header is different from the number in the main table. Instead, the border between them can be hidden with CSS styling and the colour column can be made unsortable with a CSS class so that only the names column has a sort arrow and the blank header appears as a margin to the party name header:
 * (I also edited Party name with colour to make use of the new  attribute described at meta:Help:Sorting so that the colours column could be sortable in its own right. But with hindsight that's not necessary because sorting by the party name in the next column is sufficient.)
 * — Richardguk (talk) 01:34, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

List of songs recorded by Adele
Having a bit of problem with the sorting of the Album column in the table. Its not sorting alphabetically and this is after adding the sort in an attempt to force it to do so. I'm at a loss to why it is doing this, so any help/solution would be greatly appreciated. NapHit (talk) 22:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * It is working okay for me. The lack of sortability on Writer(s) seems odd, but otherwise it looks good.  —EncMstr (talk) 23:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm its still not working for me. Everything is New is sorting above Consolers of the Lonely for instance, when it should be C first then E. NapHit (talk) 23:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops! You are correct:  the Album is not sorting correctly.  (I checked the other columns the first time, but when I saw a whole lot of numbers, I didn't check further.)
 * I looked at the HTML but did not see anything amiss. I don't understand why it does not sort properly.  —EncMstr (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Columns with numbers in the first row(s) (such as the album title "21") are assumed to be numeric, so the sorter gets confused when it finds further rows containing text.
 * There is a new way to tell the table sorter what type of data a column contains: adding a  attribute to the column header.
 * I've added  and the sorting now seems to work.
 * The attribute is documented on the meta wiki at m:Help:Sorting. Valid values are,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , or.
 * Though the new attribute is mentioned in the examples on this wiki using  and , Help:Sorting would benefit from being updated so that readers did not have to check meta for the full list of types.
 * — Richardguk (talk) 02:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the solution and explanation, much appreciated. NapHit (talk) 12:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Richardguk. Feel free to add additional info to Help:Sorting. Maybe you can create a section specifically about  and link to revisions of List of songs recorded by Adele as examples. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. I've had a go at tidying up and expanding the subsections within Help:Sorting based on a simplified version of the Adele album list and the information on meta at m:Help:Sorting. I haven't removed most of the old workaround advice that dates from before  and   were available. But the old tricks are now redundant so the next step would be to remove this and make the advice more focused.
 * Incidentally, experimenting with the album example showed that it requires several numeric rows at the top of the table to confuse the tablesorter into ignoring the non-numeric titles further down. If 19 and 21 had fewer songs listed at the start, the table would have sorted correctly all along! — Richardguk (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There is an autodetection based on the first 5 rows I believe. If there is no consistent detected datatype in the first 5 rows, then it will pick textual. Good work on cleaning up some of the help page. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 09:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Modified CSS or another Chrome Issue?
Has the table been modified? It no longer seems to be acknowledging rowspan effect, so I see this, every single item separated by line, instead of what it was before, which was one single Emmy entry, Globe entry, whatever. It used to look like that link IF you sorted, but at it's default state, the rowspan was in effect. This is from List of awards and nominations received by Game of Thrones and I've seen it on other tables. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Same here with Firefox. It seems something is copying the cell data for row-spanned cells. E.g. the value "2011" should row-span 37 rows, but it actually appears in those – quite smart, in a way. I always followed the advice that sorting cannot be done on spanned rows. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah now i understand.. We always did this for after an initial sort, but since recently we do a bit of 'prep' work on a table before the user ever clicks sort. This prep work includes the 'rowspan explosion'. This is an unintended side effect of a change that was made. Will file a report. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Issue with sorting numbers
I don't know if I'm just crazy and hadn't noticed before, but I created a Sales table for the Batman Death of the Family story article, and when I sort the numerical columns it is sorting by the first digit rather than the total value, so putting 50,070 higher than 63,659 or 3 after 17. Now I don't think it used to do this, am I doing something wrong or has something changed? Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Have a look at it now. I added  to the sales numbers, so it sorts as I would expect.  —EncMstr (talk) 16:52, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah that seems to have fixed it, I never noticed it needing htat before though, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. Thanks for that. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 17:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I added  to 2 column headers. That is easier than using  in every number cell, or using leading zeroes. See the section "Numerical sorting problems" in Help:Sorting. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that Timeshifter, I was going to edit Death of the Family after I saw your edit here but you took care of it for me, thanks for the info and the fix. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 02:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Technical detials behind sorting?
I have two questions: I run a mediawiki operation and most of the sorting works properly except for dates. Dates in text form (Aug 18, 2008, or 18 Aug 2008) do not sort properly - they sort by year, but months do not appear to sort, evaen if I try forcing the type to "date" (other types work). The documentation suggests you can "now" sort by date, suggesting this was an addition. Can anyone point me to what might have been edited or fixed so that I might add such code to my wiki?

Secondy, there is an example in the documentation where it notes that if you start out with numbers, the table can get confused and think the table is "numeric". When you sort the left column, numbers drop below letters and letters don't get sorted at all. In the right column with manually setting type to "text", it is sorted alphabetically with numbers on top. Is there any way to accomplish text sorting with numbers on the bottom (i.e. the left column but with the text cells also sorted alphabetically?) - I am doing this manually with hidden sort fields (i.e. I've prepended hidden digits to any text fields) but automatically doing it would be preferable. Similarly I've prepended hidden isodates to the dates for the first issue above, but would prefer automatics.

Thanks in advance. TheHYPO (talk) 17:17, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Edit/update: I tried putting my dates using the template dtsa on my wiki and it still doesn't work - again, it sorts by year, but then it is subsorting by the date next instead of the month. Any suggestions on how to get date-sorting working? TheHYPO (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Are you using a recent version of MediaWiki? I think that the more advanced version of tablesorter was introduced only last year with 1.21, and there were a few bug fixes and improvements in subsequent WMF releases. Also, the  and   helper attributes will only work if your wiki enables   (more info at meta:Help:Sorting).
 * The JavaScript is in resources/jquery/jquery.tablesorter.js, so perhaps you could edit or override that on your wiki if you wanted to change the default priority of numbers and letters. But that might complicate future upgrades. The JavaScript uses mw.config parameter, which is not documented on Mediawiki Wiki; the test code implies that this can be set to an array of decompositions, so possibly this could be configured to alter the alpanumeric treatment of digits; I don't know whether that would cause unwanted side-effects with numerical sorting. But I'm not an expert, so treat all these suggestions with caution!
 * — Richardguk (talk) 19:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Table using rowspan/colspan broken
The table at List_of_most_common_surnames_in_North_America which uses some rowspans and colspans has broken sorting. The arrows sort by the column to the left of the one you are clicking on. I assume this is a general problem for more complicated tables; is there anyone who can help sort this out? -- Beland (talk) 08:20, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * it's probably due to the use of numeric entries, which require nts or ntsh. Frietjes (talk) 19:55, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how the lack of nts or ntsh could cause the sorting to go so badly wrong. A click on "Multiracial" causes the table to sort by "Asian or Pacific Highlander"! -- John of Reading (talk) 20:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * you are correct. it looks like [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_common_surnames_in_North_America#United_States this] may have partially fixed it. I will see if there is a better method using class=unsortable. Frietjes (talk) 21:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ingenious! I'm impressed. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorting broken again??
From the first section of the article: "A sortable table is identified by the arrows in one or more of its header cells."

I see NO arrows in any cells in the example tables. Clicking the header cells does NOTHING. And yes, I have JavaScript enabled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 19:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * They work for me. I am using Firefox 20.0.1. Maybe try another browser. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:55, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

2013 Italian presidential election results table
I'm having some problems with the table at Italian presidential election, 2013. The columns for the first three rounds of voting sort fine, but for round 4-6 it sorts numbers as text. Could someone help? Cheers, Number   5  7  16:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know why the last 3 columns were not sorting as numbers. But I fixed them by forcing them to sort by number. I added
 * data-sort-type="number" to the column headers for those columns. See Help:Sorting. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

How to make tables using increase/decrease/steady templates sort correctly?
Hello!

Besides using a hidden sort key (and risking the displayed and hidden data becoming inconsistent), is there a way to make tables using increase/decrease/steady templates sort correctly, preferably by modifying these templates so that the template user needn't be concerned with data-sort-type etc?

For example, clicking the sorting icons in the table on the right gives steady at one end, and numbers within a category are sorted in alphabetical order.

Thanks, cm&#610;&#671;ee&#2927;&#8202;&#865;&#176;&#160;&#814;&#1583;&#8202;&#865;&#176;&#8201;&#2669; 12:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

As an example, I've added for the 1st "+/-" column the positive/negative delta number as the 1st parameter into the templates Increase, Decrease, Steady (see their documentation), and that seems to do the trick. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Michael Bednarek. This means that each number is repeated, increasing the chance that someone updating one number doesn't update the other leading to inconsistency. Is there a solution without repeating numbers? cm&#610;&#671;ee&#2927;&#8202;&#865;&#176;&#160;&#814;&#1583;&#8202;&#865;&#176;&#8201;&#2669; 11:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It can't be too difficult to enhance the templates Increase, Decrease and Steady to accept a second, named, parameter, say y, which will cause the template to emit the first, unnamed parameter. On the other hand, as those three templates are edit-protected, it might be easier to do that with the templates Rise, Fall and Same position which are not protected. I imagine something like this (without line breaks) might work:


 * but I'm no template maven and recommend to test this in a sandbox. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Auto-ranking
The List of largest hotels in the world article is crying out for auto-ranking. In the last week, two edits have added or removed hotels towards the top of the list, which has resulted in all the other entries requiring their rank to be edited. I've searched around, and cannot find a way to add an auto-rank column to a table. Is there a way of doing it that I've missed? Can one be developed? Julianhall (talk) 11:08, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * See the auto-ranking section of Help:Sorting. It is currently not possible to auto-rank tables. See the Bugzilla links. One can add a separate rank column, but that will not work for wide tables such as List of largest hotels in the world. The best you can do is to put wide tables in alphabetical order initially. But without a rank column. That allows people to add new entries without breaking the ranking. People will be able to sort columns in ascending or descending order, but without rank numbers. It is better than nothing, or having to manually re-number hundreds of items in a list every time an entry is added or changed. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:45, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help. Julianhall (talk) 11:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Sortable table not sortable when not logged in
See Net international investment position. Am I the only one who's having this problem with this table (tested in 3 different browsers)? If not so (or in either case) could someone please explain why is this happening and how to fix it? Thanx.Thanatos|talk 23:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It's sortable for me both when logged in and out in Firefox. What happens when you log out? Try to clear your entire cache. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No sort arrows when I'm out. Btw had already flashed the cache in all 3 browsers FF,IE,Chrome (I only anyway use the other 2 very very rarely; in this case just to see if the problem was general, if it would persist). Thanatos|talk 00:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * JavaScript is needed for sorting and for some other things, for example collapsible tables. Do you also lose the show/hide link in table of contents when you log out? Is there a difference between whether you are at http: or https: when you are logged in and out? Do you have security software which may disable JavaScript in multiple browsers in some circumstances? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:14, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 1.No sorting problem with other tables when I'm logged out, only with this one(as far as I know). 2.Javescript enabled. 3.Show/hide still there when I'm out. 4.Problem persists in both http and https protocols. 5.When "Security software" is set to off problem still persists. 6.Since we're going through a classical tech support troubleshooting session ): I've even done A.a full flash of the PC temp-files-cache and B.a PC and modem-router reboot. 7.Just made another test: When logging out (being on that specific page) and going right back to the page (through the return to XXX page link), it's still sortable; but it stops being so after flashing the browser cache in full though it still works after an F5 or a ctrl+F5... P.S.Anyway I don't want to waste anyone's time; if the problem only appears on my PC then it's not really a problem since I can simply log in. I've anyway only just noticed it, since having edited in the past that page&table, I knew from before it was sortable. So I'm just hopping it's only present on my PC and not also elsewhere; you saying that it's sortable shows that it's not universal (unless you've checked by logging out from that page as per 7.) So again, unless some other editor steps in having this problem, let's just hope it's only me (e.g. some silly detail that I've missed or some bug or conflicting behaviour of the installed software on my PC). Thank you very much!Thanatos|talk 00:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Now I also have problems with sorting sometimes disappearing, but it includes other pages and I haven't found a system. If I'm logged in and keep hitting F5 then there are usually sort arrows but not always. Same when I'm logged out. I wonder whether it depends which server you hit but I don't have more time today. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:38, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI the arrows have now reappeared, the table is sortable, without me changing anything (and no, I don't think it's because some anonymous editor edited the table; the problem had persisted even after that edit). Anyway whatever the reason or the way, the "problem" has been "solved"...Thanatos|talk 15:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorting & flags
Is there a reason, why flags are now not discounted in sortable tables? Armbrust The Homunculus 09:14, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Please be more explicit in your problem description. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 00:56, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * If Armbrust meant that flag icons were disregarded as values to be sorted, I don't think that was ever the case. It just turns out that in most cases the name of the flag icon image file is indeed a useful sort term – although most of the flag icons are used not in line with MOS:FLAGS and ought to be removed. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * No, some time ago flagicons were disregarded, but for some reason this doesn't happen anymore. Armbrust The Homunculus 06:15, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I still do not know what you are talking about. Can you please give an example? --Timeshifter (talk) 23:26, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

BC years
Date sorting does not work with BC years and with 1st century (i think year 11 for example is interpreted as 2011). Is there a way to make them work with data-sort-value, or do we have to switch the whole column to Template:Dts? --Bultro (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you link to the table you are trying to sort? --Timeshifter (talk) 20:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Any table... Try this --Bultro (talk) 10:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I can not get it to work even for non-BC years.

It does not work with 4-digit years either:

It only seems to work with 4-digit years starting with 1 or 2:

--Timeshifter (talk) 18:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Not even isoDate works before 100 CE I'm afraid non-date keys are the only option. Here for example i use numbers --151.96.3.241 (talk) 08:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I see what you mean about isoDate only working with dates from 100 CE onward. I added some tricky dates to see if it was sorting correctly. It looks like this version of isoDate does not require 4 digits for years before 1000. See info on ISO date format here.

It also works with just the numbers:

Adding 99 CE to the table breaks sorting in the table below:

--Timeshifter (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Circa abbreviation
The Help:Sorting page uses a mix of "ca." and "c." as the abbreviation for circa. Would it break anything if I change the the abbreviation from "ca." to use "c." consistently? Per WP:ABBR "c." is the standard abbreviation for circa in English Wikipedia. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 22:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If the guideline says to use "c." then it sounds good to me. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:47, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Done. SchreiberBike talk 20:37, 7 September 2013 (UTC)