Reference > Functions reference > Text functions > SortValues

SortValues

Sorts a list of values based on the specified data type and locale.

Format

SortValues ( values {; datatype ; locale } )

Parameters

values - any text expression or field that's a list of values separated by carriage returns.

datatype - a number that specifies the type of data to be sorted (see below). A positive value sorts in ascending order; a negative value sorts in descending order.

locale - the name of the locale whose sorting rules are to be followed (see below).

Parameters in braces { } are optional.

Data type returned

text

Originated in

FileMaker Pro 16.0

Description

For a description of a list of values, see ValueCount function.

Each returned value ends with a carriage return, allowing lists to be easily concatenated.

For the datatype parameter, use one of the following values so this function can sort values appropriately. If you use no value or an unrecognized value, values are sorted as text in ascending order.

`datatype`	Sorts values as
1	Text
2	Number
3	Date
4	Time
5	Timestamp

For the locale parameter, use one of the following names to specify which locale's sorting rules are to be used. Sort order is determined by locale in the same manner as for sorting records (see Choosing a language for indexing or sorting). Specifying a blank or no value sorts based on the locale of the file that contains the calculation's relationship graph; an unrecognized value causes this function to return "?".

Supported names for `locale` parameter
Arabic	English	Hindi	Norwegian	Spanish_Traditional
Bengali	Estonian	Hungarian	Panjabi	Swedish
Bulgarian	Finnish	Icelandic	Persian	Swedish_Custom
Catalan	Finnish_Custom	Italian	Polish	Tamil
Catalog	French	Japanese	Portuguese	Telugu
Chinese	German	Kannada	Romanian	Thai
Chinese_Stroke	German_Dictionary	Korean	Russian	Turkish
Croatian	Greek	Latvian	Serbian	Ukrainian
Czech	Greek_Mixed	Lithuanian	Slovak	Unicode_Raw
Danish	Gujarati	Malayalam	Slovenian	Unicode_Standard
Dutch	Hebrew	Marathi	Spanish	Vietnamese

Notes

•This function is not supported in runtime solutions and returns "?".

Example 1

SortValues ( "34¶600¶18¶29" ; -2 ) returns 600¶34¶29¶18¶.

Example 2

SortValues ( Product::Colors ) returns values sorted in the default order (as text in ascending alphabetical order) in a file in which the locale is English:

blue¶green¶GREEN¶red¶yellow¶

when the Product::Colors field contains red¶green¶blue¶GREEN¶yellow¶.