Sort EDOCMAN_DESCRIPTION does not show the expected sequence

Hi, in category display I need a sort option for the description entries, so I changed the view\category\hmtl.php to:

Overall the sorting works, but the results for the descriptions do not show the expected sequence. There are only eight-digit numbers in the description fields, sometimes several separated with spaces. As an example for an ascending sorting please see attached picture.

Do I have to adjust anything else or what could be the reason? Thank you.

Edocman 1.25.6, Joomla 5.12.


 

Hi Reto,
Actually, your modification doesn't relate the description showing. Could you please tell me more about the description showing issue so i can judge the cause of problem.
Thanks
Dam

Hi Dam,
I use the description field as a part number for product documents. This part number is an 8-digit number, sometimes a product has several part numbers separated by spaces. The problem is that the sorting (ascending or descending) is not correct. As in the picture with ascending sorting I get a list of the documents in the order

01016581
01016696
01016699
01005149
01007277
01008874
01009670
01009738
01011424

but it should be

01005149
01007277
01008874
01009670
01009738
01011424
01016581
01016696
01016699

Sorting for date or title works without problems.

Hi Reto,
First, the description is text (string value).
When numbers are stored as strings, they are treated as sequences of characters rather than numerical values. In string sorting, the comparison is done based on the lexicographical (alphabetical) order of the characters. This means it looks at the first character, then the second, and so on, rather than evaluating the numeric value of the whole string.
For example:
- The string "10" comes before "2" in lexicographical order because '1' is less than '2' when compared character by character.
- However, if these strings were converted to integers, 10 would naturally come after 2 because we're sorting based on their numeric values.
That's the reason you don't have expected sorting in search result with Description field.
Thanks
Dam

Okay, thanks Dam for your explanation.

You're welcome.
Dam