Sorting or exporting rows

Topic group

Sorting a table copies its contents to a separate table and arranges rows in the order you specify in the new table.

Tip

In general, use sorting only when you want to export data to another application or table type. Sorting is useful whenever you want to create a separate table for reporting or other purposes. Use indexing instead when you want to make data entry, querying, and reporting tasks faster and more efficient.

When you sort, the source table is the table containing the rows you want to copy, and the target table is the new table (and new table type, if you want) to contain the copied rows. Sorting does not change the data in the source file.

When you sort a table, all fields in the source table appear in the target table. You select the fields on which to sort rows.

dBASE Plus sorts data in case-sensitive alphabetic order, using the sort order specified by the language driver in the BDE Administrator. Sorting starts with the first character in the key and proceeds from left to right. Punctuation comes before numbers, numbers before letters, and uppercase letters before lowercase letters.

Note

Make sure you have enough available disk space to store the table on the target drive.

To created a sorted table or export table data to another table type,

1. Open the table you want to sort in Run mode.

• Choose Table|Sort Rows. The Sort Rows dialog box appears.

• Specify a target table. This is the path name of the new sorted file. Click the Target Table tool button to display a Save As dialog box. If you want to export the table data to another table type, choose the new table type in the box at the bottom of the Save As dialog box.

• Select the field(s) on which to sort rows, and click the > button to move them to the Order By list.
  The order in which the selected fields appear in the Order By list determines the order of the sort. The target table contains all fields from the source table.

• Select each Order By field, then specify the sort order.

• When you have finished, click OK. dBASE Plus creates a new table. If the target file exists, dBASE Plus asks whether to overwrite it. The rows you selected are copied to the target table and sorted as you specified, starting with the first Order By field.