Space and Collating Sequence

[Oldfogey]

I can't believe I'm entering this!

My customer wants a list of customers sorted on contact name. No big deal. He wants those without a contact name to be last in the sort sequence. No matter what I do, I can't get them to sort with blank contact names last. I thought empty might be a problem so put spaces in the empty ones.

I've set up a special Value List with the 'normal' alpha sequence and finishing with a " ". The " " still sorts first.

I don't really want to put in an additinal calc field but that's beginning to look like the only option.

Any clues?

[LaRetta]

Hi Paul,

Yep, it can be frustrating. I've found no way (if you can't custom sort by another field or VL) other than adding another field but it can be very small. Calc (number) with:

IsEmpty(ContactName)

Then sort by this calc ascending then Contact Name ascending. I've used it to sort dates to put empty dates at the bottom), ie, not dateField then sort this calc descending (with Do Not Evaluate checked). These fields can be Auto-Enter (Replace) or indexed calcs so they use little resources.

LaRetta :wink2:

[Oldfogey]

Thanks a million! I'm so relieved to find I'm not quite as dopey as I thought.

[LaRetta]

"I'm so relieved to find I'm not quite as dopey as I thought."

That's a sin of assumption ... it might only mean that I'm as dopey as you!

I'd hold all verdicts until we're sure some clever soul hasn't found another way. But I've tried forcing sorts by unicode, Japanese, and all kinds of crazy things. I finally decided that a single number (particularly boolean) wasn't so bad after all ...

[Vaughan]

How can contacts with no name appear in a value list?

I make a calculation that replaces empty contact names with something like "" that will sort last. Base the value list on this calculation field.

If( IsEmpty( contactname ) ; "" ; contactname )

[LaRetta]

I thought this was for regular sorting ... and Paul was trying to use value list only to control the sort sequence. Opps.

BTW, happy (late) birthday, Vaughan!! 3/30, right? :party:

[Oldfogey]

You're right LaRetta. My VL was just numbers, the alphabet, etc.

Vaughan, How's your legal knowhow? Would I be liable for the heart attacks caused by the appearance of "" in a field on the screen? Will you take all the phone calls?

Happy birthday, Junior. :beer: