Re: sort file problem { xy-3.53 under WIN98.SE }

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Pierre d'Or jcvanhaeften@xxxxxxxx wrote:
It must be about 8 years ago i used a self-made sortfile,
now i need a special reverse sort again

so i did make a file contaning:
;SO;
9
8
x
y
z

Both LOAD and LDSORT accept this file ("done").

But if i use the sort-command the result is not reverse but the
same as always (before the load)
I'm at a disadvantage here, because I haven't used Xy 3 in
years, but one thing that leaps to the eye is that your sort
file is only reverse as far as numbers go; letters are in
alphabetical order.
Second--and can some 3 user please check if this is true in
3 as well?--Xy4 lets you specify the sort order as normal or
reversed, with a setting in SETTINGS.DFL or with Default
from the command line. SO=R will reverse the order. So
unless that's lacking in 3, you shouldn't need to create a
new sort file.
Third, and most important, for a sort file to work, you need
to have both cap and lowercase letters at each entry (at
least in Xy4). And if you're writing French, you should also
include the more common accented letters. When I added the
capital letters to your sample (e.g.,
AÀÂÄaàâä
Bb
Cc)
it worked fine under Xy4. If I commanded Default so=R,
defined a list of words, and then commanded SORTD (if you
want Reverse, you apparently have to use SortD, not just
Sort), I got Xantippe before Aeneas. Now that's all in 4.
Try it in 3 and see what happens. To recap:
1. Add capital letters, on the same line, to each lowercase
letter.
2. Don't bother reversing the order in the srt file, but
3. Command at the command line Default SO=R
4. Define the items to be sorted and command SORTD

See what happens.


Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx