GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 150799
register view - sort by num: sorts alphabetically instead of numerically
Last modified: 2018-06-29 20:46:40 UTC
Create an account with some transactions numbered 998, 999, 1000, and 1001. Notice that if View > Sort Order > Standard is selected, the sort is first by date, then by number. Now switch to View > Sort Order > Number, and it sorts by number, but sorts the numbers alphabetically rather than numerically (so they come in the order 1000, 1001, 998, 998). This has been verified in gnucash 1.8.9 and the CVS 1.8 branch with latest ChangeLog entry titled: 2004-18-21 Derek Atkins <derek@ihtfp.com>. This is Debian bug http://bugs.debian.org/242441.
Yea, the "number" field is just another string (there is not requirement that the contents be solely numeric). There was a discussion on gnucash-devel a while ago about this topic; what do you do about mix and matched numerics and alpha-numerics when trying to sort on the number column? For example, if I've got: 998, 999, 1000, 1001, and "check#12" -- how should it sort these five entries?
From private email: > I'm sure it would be fine to do whatever is done with the "standard" > sort mode. That seems to sort first by date, then by number, and when > it sorts by number, strictly numeric fields are sorted numerically. Indeed, you're right -- the code is as follows (from Transaction.c:xaccTransOrder()): /* otherwise, sort on number string */ na = atoi(ta->num); nb = atoi(tb->num); if (na < nb) return -1; if (na > nb) return +1; So I guess it does just do "atoi" and assume it's a number. *shrugs*.. Ok.
Does this issue also occur in the 2.0.x versions? Development on 1.8.x has stopped, so please upgrade to 2.0.x (most current is 2.0.1) and see whether this problem still occurs.
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!
I have verified that this bug does still exist in gnucash 2.0.1.
I confirm Thomas Bushnell's report: the num field still sorts alpha in 2.0.1.
Okay, this is now fixed in Trunk in r14892. I don't know if this major a change should get backported to 2.0 branch. I'll leave that up to the other devs.
Okay, a better patch is in r14903.
(actually, 14903 missed one hunk -- it needs 14094, too)
Backported to 2.0 in r14906. This fix will be in 2.0.2.
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