Hi there,
Unfortunately at this time I do not have code edit access as many in this forum seem to, and I only have report writer view. I'm trying to sort a count of distinct values for a very basic report. However, when I attempt to put in the sort, it says FOC1867: operator must be at the lowest level of aggregation. I find it strange that one can't process a count of distinct values and then sort on it.

I've attempted the following:

1. Using the GUI editor, drag in the field I want a count distinct on, and click through the aggregation function to obtain count distinct. So far so good. When I sort, it errors out and won't run the report, throwing me error above.

2. create a virtual (define) field to first obtain a distinct count of orders and then attempt the sort. That did not work - it does not recognize the operator cnt.dst.[field name] and I'm not sure how to code this properly in the define field if not for "cnt.dst."

3. created a compute field just to see if anything would happen. While it accepted the "cnt.dst.[field name]" operator, it did not work when attempting to sort.

I've tried to sort in every way I could within the other report fields, but no matter what I do I cannot sort the number I want: the count of distinct orders.

Does anyone with experience in report writer view know how to obtain the expected result?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FP Mod Chuck,

Here is one way done in two steps :

TABLE FILE CAR
SUM COMPUTE NBCAR /P3 = CNT.DST.CAR;
BY COUNTRY
ON TABLE HOLD AS CNTDATA
END
-RUN

TABLE FILE CNTDATA
BY NBCAR
BY COUNTRY
END
-RUN

I can recreate MartinY's solution in the GUI.

I cannot figure out how to do BabakNYC's version in the GUI. Sometimes you can code it, then open it in the GUI and see what's highlighted to give you a clue. No luck this time.

Nice way to burn some time this morning, though!

To perform Babak option in GUI from new report :

1- Create the COMPUTEd field : NbModel /D5 = CNT.DST.MODEL
2- Insert the COMPUTEd filed into the report layout
3- Change it to a Sort Down instead of an Aggregate
4- Change its Sort Order for Down
5- Insert the Country field
6- Insert the Car field
7- Insert your COMPUTEd field as an Aggregate

It will result in this :

TABLE FILE CAR
SUM
     COMPUTE NbModel/D5 = CNT.DST.MODEL;
BY TOTAL HIGHEST COMPUTE NbModel/D5 = CNT.DST.MODEL;
BY  CAR.ORIGIN.COUNTRY
BY  CAR.COMP.CAR
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM NOLEAD
ON TABLE SET ASNAMES ON
ON TABLE NOTOTAL
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT HTML
ON TABLE SET HTMLEMBEDIMG ON
ON TABLE SET HTMLCSS ON
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
     INCLUDE = warm,
$
ENDSTYLE
END

In InfoAssist, place MODEL under SUM and COUNTRY and CAR in BY.

Right Click MODEL, More, Aggregation Functions, Count Distinct. This generates DST.CNT.MODEL.

In the ribbon bar above you'll see two icons under the Sort Grouping. AZ and ZA. Click ZA to generate the BY TOTAL HIGHEST.

That should generate what I typed up.

MartinY's instructions worked fine. It's just a different mindset.