Forum Discussion

darshthakkar's avatar
darshthakkar
Valued Contributor
4 years ago
Solved

Sort snap's functionality

Results of a sort snap (ascending) is a little bit hard to digest. I used a file reader which was reading a single column A (i.e. IDs) and I decided to sort it. The results I get are surprising.

Input raw data:
1217
151983
1543
370904
402
402783
901602
373
373916
374
120651
1216
1000022
1000027
394533
906
909
1000019
918
1205

Output after sort:
1000019
1000022
1000027
1205
120651
1216
1217
151983
1543
370904
373
373916
374
394533
402
402783
901602
906
909
918

Result expected:
373
374
402
906
909
918
1205
1216
1217
1543
120651
151983
370904
373916
394533
402783
901602
1000019
1000022
1000027

Can anyone explain what’s the rationale behind the results I got using the sort snap? It’s confusing for me to be honest.
Thanking you in advance for your time, help and response.

Regards,
Darsh

pipeline
  • bojanvelevski's avatar
    bojanvelevski
    4 years ago

    Hey @darshthakkar,

    This happens because the field you’re sorting is string, so it is sorted alphabetically.

    As I can see, all of these values support parsing so try and parse them before sorting.

    Ex. : parseInt($ID)

8 Replies

  • bojanvelevski's avatar
    bojanvelevski
    Valued Contributor
    4 years ago

    Hey @darshthakkar,

    This happens because the field you’re sorting is string, so it is sorted alphabetically.

    As I can see, all of these values support parsing so try and parse them before sorting.

    Ex. : parseInt($ID)

    • darshthakkar's avatar
      darshthakkar
      Valued Contributor
      4 years ago

      Thanks a TON @bojanvelevski, does using an “Excel Parser” after file reader help? Do we need to explicitly ingest a mapper and then put parseInt($ID) under expression?

      Just for your reference, my pipeline looks like File Reader → Excel Parser → Mapper (as I’m renaming the single column, could have renamed it in excel itself before reading it but went this route) → Sort

      • darshthakkar's avatar
        darshthakkar
        Valued Contributor
        4 years ago

        It worked! I tried testing with parseInt($ID) and I got the desired results, thanks again @bojanvelevski 🙂 :innocent:

  • bojanvelevski's avatar
    bojanvelevski
    Valued Contributor
    4 years ago

    I apologize, I was confused with a different use case 🙂 Parsing the column so you could have a successful sorting is the right way. There’s no need for further adjustments or trying a different approaches.

      • darshthakkar's avatar
        darshthakkar
        Valued Contributor
        4 years ago

        @bojanvelevski: I got your point on formatted, I believe you were referring to the one below:

        That option is available in excel parser snap itself.
        I will keep this in mind and test it standalone, without interfering with my current scenario. Thanks again, your help is much appreciated.