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From: fwb@pollux.tmc.edu (Fred Brehm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: sorting problems (was: Why?)
Message-ID: <56786@siemens.siemens.com>
Date: 28 Mar 91 14:32:47 GMT
References: <120@lake.scar.toronto.edu> <50903@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@siemens.siemens.com
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Organization: Siemens Corporate Research
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In article <120@lake.scar.toronto.edu> barek@lake.scar.toronto.edu
 (William Barek) writes:
>
>   Secondly, I could not belive that sorting is almost useless (please no
>   flames). Why. Have you ever tried to sort 2 fields ( one text, other
>   numeric) or lines in a field that have two columns one is text other is
>   numeric). To me it is a very basic operation, why this was missed or am
>   I missing something?

In article <50903@apple.Apple.COM> stadler@Apple.COM (Andy Stadler) answers:
>Both of these tricks are easy.  To sort using multiple keys, just sort the
>stack multiple times, starting with the minor sort key and finishing with the
>major sort key.  For example, if you have a stack with first name and last name
>fields, you would sort it like this:
[explanation deleted]

I think you answered the wrong question.  A stable sort makes sorting by
multiple keys possible.  However, he did not ask about sorting cards.  One
of Mr. Barek's requests could be fulfilled by a command like

  sort lines of container by item 2 descending numeric
                          ^^^^^^^^^
but HyperCard 2.0v2 doesn't have this.

Another request seems to be sorting of two separate fields. I'm not sure
exactly what he means by this, but I'll guess that he would like to consider
line i of each of the two fields to be somehow considered as one record.

There are work-arounds to both of these things using HyperTalk, but they
are pretty ugly.  An XFCN or XCMD would probably work much faster.

Fred
-- 
Frederic W. Brehm	Siemens Corporate Research	Princeton, NJ
fwb@demon.siemens.com	-or-	...!princeton!siemens!demon!fwb