Item8722: TablePlugin sorts dates alphabetically if some cells are empty
Priority: Normal
Current State: Closed
Released In: 1.1.0
Target Release: minor
After a very recent update to
TablePlugin fixing a sorting issue with decimal number we now have introduced a new problem.
Before the change a column with dates where some of the cells were empty would sort so first all the empty cells were listed followed by the dates sorted as dates
The rows with the empty cells would sort more or less randomly but they would always come before the cells with dates.
After the change the column with empty cells is regarded as text strings and the sort happens alphabetically.
Here is an actual example. The project manager in question has always had the dates sorted by the forecast column. When a milestone is reached the date is moved to the actual column leaving more and more cells in the forecast empty.
Normally we would sort by planned but in this case the dates have crossed over a lot so the PM prefers the sort by forecast.
That worked OK until 2 days ago when I upgraded our
TablePlugin.
It would be better if the
- Empty cells in a row of random strings is sorted like an empty string (which is the case today)
- Empty cells in a row of numbers are sorted so empty means "infinite negative" ie. before all numbers, which would make it consistant with numbers and dates
- Empty cells in a row of dates are sorted so empty means epoch 0 (before any modern date)
- Empty cell rows are sorted within themselves as they appear in the raw input table (nice to have). This would make a better chance that those rows are not in total random order.
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KennethLavrsen - 17 Mar 2010
The previous version of table plugin would stop sorting as soon as the column type was ambivalent: mixed dates and strings or empty cells. The update on trunk makes it possible to have cells of different type mixed.
Please give an example that illustrates the problem you are seeing.
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ArthurClemens - 17 Mar 2010
I had written "here is an example - but forgotten to paste in the example I had in the paste buffer. I am getting old. I have added it up in the original description.
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KennethLavrsen - 17 Mar 2010
It seems this site has a plugin version that does not do this either.
I have a merlin.lavrsen.dk installation I call timewarp which I use to jump between versions. It is currently at the 1.0.9 release version. And on this it sorts like it did here at the office until I upgraded.
http://merlin.lavrsen.dk/timewarp/bin/view/Myweb/ScheduleTableTest
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KennethLavrsen - 17 Mar 2010
OK. trunk version works fine. Only the release version needs a tweak.
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ArthurClemens - 17 Mar 2010
This will not get fixed in 1.0 scope.
I am changing target to 1.1 (minor) and setting it to
WaitingForRelease
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KennethLavrsen - 22 Jul 2010