Series sorting in Appian

Did you try to use todatasubset()?

Did you try to use todatasubset()?

We have tried todatasubset but it was not sorting as expected. Thanks

Using the sort in a datasubset IS sorting correctly,. The array is a list of string (not number - 1.1.1 is not a valid numeric value) and sorting as as list of string works correctly, but obviously doesn't meet your requirements. You'll have to implement your own custom sort. I suspect (although haven't done the work) that you'll have to examine each item, determine how many 'dots' the item contains, split out the numbers between the dots and implement a nested sort based upon how many levels of dot an item contains.

Thanks for the response Stewart ! Can you provide any sample example for the custom sort? it would be helpful to implement the logics.

I can't provide sample code as it's likely to be quite time consuming. I can recommend an approach, which would be to extract strings that are logically at the same level e.g. '1.1.1.1' and '3.4.56.8' both have 4 numbers (with 3 "dots"). Once extracted to its own list this will sort correctly. 

Assuming that for every level below level 1 each item always has a parent present (e.g. '1.1' will have a parent of '1', '3.4.6' will have a parent of '3.4', and '3.4' will have a parent of '3') then you can partition your sorted lists at each level (e.g. all '1.1.x' items in one sorted list, all '1.2.x' items in a sorted list) you should be able to inject your sorted partition lists in the right position in the result list. 

a!localVariables(
  local!values: {"1",
    "1.1",
    "1.1.1",
    "4",
    "1.2",
    "3",
    "2",
    "2.1",
    "2.2",
    "10",
    "13",
    "12"
  },
  local!prepare: a!forEach(
    items: local!values,
    expression: a!map(
      first: text(split(fv!item, ".")[1], "0000"),
      second: text(index(split(fv!item, "."), 2, null), "0000"),
      third: text(index(split(fv!item, "."), 3, null), "0000"),
      index: fv!index
    )
  ),
  local!sorted: todatasubset(
    local!prepare,
    a!pagingInfo(
      startIndex: 1,
      batchSize: -1,
      sort: {
        a!sortInfo(field: "first", ascending: true),
        a!sortInfo(field: "second", ascending: true),
        a!sortInfo(field: "third", ascending: true),
      }
    )
  ),
  index(local!values, local!sorted.data.index)
)

Gah! I'd completely forgotten that the sort now supports nested sortInfo()...that makes the problem WAYYYYY easier...

Thanks Stefan for the sample. we will take it forward from here.