Focus 101 sorting. Here is my code
TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY CAR MODEL BODYTYPE LENGTH
BY LENGTH
BY BODYTYPE
END

This is a simple program, but on the seventh and eighth line, why does SEDAN appear before COUPE? 'C' comes before 'S'.

PAGE 1
LENGTH BODYTYPE COUNTRY CAR MODEL BODYTYPE LENGTH
163 SEDAN JAPAN DATSUN B210 2 DOOR AUTO SEDAN 163
163 COUPE ITALY ALFA ROMEO 2000 GT VELOCE COUPE 163
165 HARDTOP ENGLAND TRIUMPH TR7 HARDTOP 165
165 SEDAN JAPAN TOYOTA COROLLA 4 DOOR DIX AUTO SEDAN 165
170 ROADSTER ITALY ALFA ROMEO 2000 SPIDER VELOCE ROADSTER 170
176 SEDAN W GERMANY BMW 2002 2 DOOR SEDAN 176
W GERMANY BMW 2002 2 DOOR AUTO SEDAN 176
177 SEDAN ITALY ALFA ROMEO 2000 4 DOOR BERLINA SEDAN 177
177 COUPE ITALY MASERATI DORA 2 DOOR COUPE 177
182 SEDAN FRANCE PEUGEOT 504 4 DOOR SEDAN 182
187 SEDAN W GERMANY AUDI 100 LS 2 DOOR AUTO SEDAN 187

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

Hi Jrbrown00

First of all welcome to Focal Point, it is a great forum to get answers to your development questions...

The only thing I can figure is that the CAR database is hierarchical and the LENGTH field is in a child segment of the BODYTYPE field. When I changed your report to SEATS instead of LENGTH it sorted as you would expect and that field is in the same segment as BODYTYPE. If I used any of the other fields under the SPECS segment it does sort weird.

Anyone else have an explantion for this?

Not sure that's it Chuck. Sorting worked just fine when I use FUEL_CAP, RPM, MPG, or BHP from the SPECS, but not for Length or Width. This is interesting behavior. Perhaps in the background length and width are indexed differently?

CAR is a multi-Seg FOCUS file. I don't know for sure but could it have something to do with the fact that BODYTYPE is in a higher segment than LENGTH in the master file?

Try this:

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT COUNTRY CAR MODEL BODYTYPE LENGTH/P8.2
BY LENGTH 
BY BODYTYPE
END

You will be surprised

Very interesting the value for length is larger because of the decimal value and therefore is sorting correctly...

quote:

LENGTH/P8.2

LOL, I was going to try that, but thought nah and decided to move onto something else.

quote:

nah

I'm a stickler for punishment.