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Automatically detect if sorting in Data Inspector is alphabetical or numeric.

Related products:FME Form

Just a small thing that's annoying me in the Data Inspector. My numeric fields are always sorted alphabetical by default when I click on the attribute name to sort (1, 10, 100, ...). Is it possible to detect if a field is completely numeric and sort it as such?

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8 replies

  • August 15, 2018

Good idea, and /or maybe an addition: make the first click on the column header shift sorting to numeric ascending, or to keep all options open: cycle through all 4 possible ways of sorting (now, even when you chose numeric by hand, clicking on the header results in alphabetic sorting asc/dec)


  • August 15, 2018
This would be great, and/or as an addition: make the first click on the column numeric ascending in stead of alphabetic dec. Maybe to keep all options open: or cycle through the whole sorting option list (now it seems to stick to alphabetical, eventhough you chose numeric)

 

 


fmelizard
Contributor
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  • Contributor
  • August 15, 2018

Hmm, I think this happens because much of the time FME does not know what the data type of a column is ahead of time. But that said, it feels like we could at least make an educated guess i.e. scan the first 1000 values and if they are all numeric go for a numeric sort. I'll see what the team thinks..


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  • February 18, 2019

I am having the same problem described above in version 2018 and the latest beta of 2019 within the Data Inspector. It is kind of a pain when trying to determine the maximum string length for an attribute of a feature, especially when you have over a 1000 records! You have to scroll through each group of data, those starting with 1..., starting with 2..., starting with 3... find the maximum string length. A bit cumbersome. I cringe when I get to my exchange areas that have close to 10,000 records!


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  • February 18, 2019

If anyone else is having this problem, please take the time to comment here. The more people report this error, the likelier that Safe will address it in a future version.


ebygomm
Influencer
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  • Influencer
  • February 21, 2019

Are you saying you cannot right click on a column heading and sort numerically? This functionality is available, this idea is just so the sort gets defaulted to numeric for numeric data


cheffing
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  • February 27, 2019

Same problem in my installation: FME(R) 2018.1.0.3 (20180926 - Build 18552 - WIN64). Really annoying bug!


cheffing
Forum|alt.badge.img
  • February 27, 2019

Okay ... I didn't mentioned the hidden feature on right-click! Pardon


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