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Blue circle with three white circles inside that are in a line increasing in size from left to right. Sort Tool

One Tool Example

Sort has a One Tool Example. Go to Sample Workflows to learn how to access this and many other examples directly in Alteryx Designer.

Use Sort to arrange the records in a table in alphanumeric order based on the values of the specified data fields.

Configure the Tool

Use Dictionary Order: This is checked by default for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish languages. Use the associated dropdown, then select a character or language set to sort by.

Sort Method

Depending on the language of your Designer instance, a different default sort order might be used. Consult the Localization User Settings to read more about the default Sort Method.

Sort Priority

  • Letters are sorted alphabetically.

  • With dictionary sort, each lowercase letter comes before the uppercase equivalent. The letters are sorted in the order of the selected language's alphabet. Note that this is the default selection for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish versions of Designer.

  • With Unicode Code Point sort, the uppercase set comes before the lowercase set. All letters without accent marks come before all letters with accent marks.

English Dictionary

Swedish Dictionary

Unicode Code Point

a

a

A

A

A

Y

ă

y

Z

Ă

Y

a

y

Z

y

Y

a

Ă

Z

Ă

ă

  • Numeric strings are sorted before letter values.

  • With dictionary sort, numeric strings are sorted from the smallest to the largest number. Note that this is the default selection for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish versions of Designer.

  • With non-dictionary sort, numeric strings are sorted left to right, character by character.

Dictionary Order

Unicode Code Point

1

1

2

10

3

100

10

11

11

110

100

2

110

3

  • With dictionary sort, punctuation is grouped and sorts before other values. Note that this is the default selection for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish versions of Designer.

  • With Unicode Code Point sort, punctuation is ordered by ASCII value and is not grouped.

Dictionary Order

Unicode Code Point

,

,

~

Z

a

a

Z

~

Select Fields

Select the sort Fields with the dropdowns.

  • Name: The column (field) to sort on.

  • Order: The sequence the output follows. Choose from...

    • Ascending: The default value.

    • Descending

If the data is sorted on multiple columns, the Sort tool determines the sort order with the Fields list, starting with the uppermost entry. Manipulate the list sorting order with the Up, Down, and Delete buttons on the right.

Important

The Sort tool uses a stable sorting algorithm to maintain the relative order of rows that have equal sort values. Two records are input, Record1 before Record2. The records have the same value being sorted. Record1 is before Record2 in the sorted output.