Sort records (and items in any table)

In this example, records are sorted by the values in creator:

1. Click the column header once:

   

   The records are sorted in ascending order by the values in the column. An arrow in the header indicates the direction of the sort:

   

2. Click the column header and the records are sorted in descending order by the values in the column:

   

3. Click again to return the records to their unsorted state (the order in which they display following a search for instance).

Alternatively, use the drop down menu from the three vertically aligned dots. The current sort state is highlighted:

Having sorted records on the values in one column, we can then sort those records on a second (third, fourth, etc.) column.

For example, we have sorted records by the values in creator and as a result all records for items by each creator are listed together:

We can now add a second sort so that records are then also sorted by title:

Note that the header not only includes an arrow indicating the direction of the sort (ascending in this case) but a number indicating the sort order (records are sorted by column 1 and then by column 2, and so on).

You can sort records by as many columns as you require.

Some fields can hold more than one value. A book, for example, can have more than one author and in the record for the book each author's name will be recorded as a separate occurrence If a field in the current record can have more than one value, we add an occurrence of the field for each value (e.g. a book can have multiple authors so we add an occurrence of the author.name (au) field for each author). An occurrence can be a member of a group of fields, and adding an occurrence of the field adds all members of the group at once.:

As noted above however, only the first occurrence If a field in the current record can have more than one value, we add an occurrence of the field for each value (e.g. a book can have multiple authors so we add an occurrence of the author.name (au) field for each author). An occurrence can be a member of a group of fields, and adding an occurrence of the field adds all members of the group at once. in a field will display in a cell in Result set View.

When sorting records on the values in a column, records are sorted by every occurrence in the field not only the value we see.

Sort order

If you sort a field in which a record has more than one occurrence of a value, your records may not appear to sort as you might expect. Here we see records sorted in ascending order by values in the creator column. The record with priref A record's unique identifier. Currently, the simplest way to view a record's unique identifier is to add the priref column to Result set View. The field tag for the priref field is %0. 63 appears to be out of place with Macleod listed before Bakst:

If we look at this record in Record details View, we see that there are two occurrences of creator, MacLeod and Bach:

Only the first occurrence If a field in the current record can have more than one value, we add an occurrence of the field for each value (e.g. a book can have multiple authors so we add an occurrence of the author.name (au) field for each author). An occurrence can be a member of a group of fields, and adding an occurrence of the field adds all members of the group at once. of a field displays in Result set View, but records are sorted by all the values in a field. As we see above, when an ascending sort is performed, this record is sorted by Bach, which obviously comes before Bakst.

When a descending sort is performed, this record will be sorted by MacLeod:

In this case the record with priref A record's unique identifier. Currently, the simplest way to view a record's unique identifier is to add the priref column to Result set View. The field tag for the priref field is %0. 36 now appears to be sorted incorrectly, but it has been sorted by its second occurrence, Smith, which obviously precedes MacLeod in a descending sort.

From Collections 1.17 onwards it is possible to have Collections remember your sorting, filtering and grouping choices by enabling the Retain sorting, grouping and filtering option (for each data source in which you sort, filter and/or group records):

Note: In versions of Collections older than 1.17, any sorting, filtering and/or grouping you applied in Result set View is lost when you perform a new search.

If your search results are already sorted in Result set View when you run a search, it is likely that the Retain sorting, grouping and filtering option is enabled and your previous sort is being applied automatically.

When viewing search results in Result set View it is a simple matter to sort records by values in one or more columns.

It is also possible to adapt your search statement so that the search results are already sorted when you view them in any of the Display Views.

For example:

title = * AND creator= * sort creator

will return all records with a title and creator and sort them alphabetically (A to Z) by creator.

To sort records on more than one field, list fields in the desired sort order separated by commas, e.g.:

title = arc* sort author, title

Sort order

By default the sort order of fields is ascending: A to Z for text fields; 1 to 9 for numeric fields; earliest to latest for date fields.

Note: When the sort order is ascending, records with no value in the sort field will be listed first.

To reverse the order, add descending after the field name, e.g.:

title = arc* sort author descending

It is possible to sort on multiple fields in ascending and descending order. For example:

title = * AND dating.date.start = * sort dating.date.start, creator descending

will first sort records by date (earliest to latest) and any records with the same date will then be sorted by creator (Z to A).

Rather than returning all records that match your search criteria, it is possible to return a random sample of matching records using the random operator in an Advanced search (full details here).

When you make use of the random operator in an Advanced search it is not possible to sort the records returned in Result set View using the sort options in a column header (i.e. by clicking the ellipsis and selecting a sort option):

In order to sort results returned with the random operator it is necessary to include the sort operator in your Advanced search statement. For example:

all sort object_number random 10

This search statement searches all records in the data source, randomly selects 10 of them and sorts them by object number in ascending order.

Tip: The random operator always follows the search statement.

Tip: By including the sort operator in the search statement it is possible to sort your random records on any indexed field, not only those displaying in Result set View.