[Solved] Data is not sorting correctly

[php111]

I have an OpenOffice spreadsheet of all Star Trek movies and TV series. I am not a Star Trek fan but I did it to past by time. The problem is, how do I properly sort so everything will be sorted properly? That means I don't want Column C for example to end up with a different year from like Column E. I want everything to be properly aligned. How do I do this? I tried Data —> Sort but first it did not sort in ascending as I specified (I do not think so at least). And second, the data was all mixed up which is probably why I did not notice it would have been in ascending.
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Here's what the spreadsheet looks like

Column A is Series or Movie

Column B is Season #

Column C is Episode #

Column D is Title

Column E is Year of release

For Column A, if I listed a movie than in columns B, C, and D - I wrote N/A

Thanks!

[Hagar Delest]

Please upload a sample file so that we can see how are formatted your data (see: How to attach a document here).

[floris v]

You always have to select all columns that belong together before sorting. Only then will any spreadsheet software "know" that the data in a row belongs together and should be sorted together. In your case, select columns A-E and all rows with data. Only then, start the sorting procedure.

If you aren't sure that you do things correctly, always save your document before doing something dangerous. That may be a replace command - to make things worse, with regular expressions -, and definitely a sort operation.

[php111]

Thanks! Here's the spreadsheet

[php111]

You always have to select all columns that belong together before sorting. Only then will any spreadsheet software "know" that the data in a row belongs together and should be sorted together. In your case, select columns A-E and all rows with data. Only then, start the sorting procedure.

If you aren't sure that you do things correctly, always save your document before doing something dangerous. That may be a replace command - to make things worse, with regular expressions -, and definitely a sort operation.

Yes! Thanks! I definitely highlighted everything first. But something does not look right when I tried to sort. I want to have column E from oldest ro newest.

[floris v]

Yes! Thanks! I definitely highlighted everything first. But something does not look right when I tried to sort. I want to have column E from oldest ro newest.

That worked for me, sort in ascending order, but in The Raven, you entered a typo, // instead of /.

[php111]

I am confused that I made a typo in The Raven by // instead of /?

As I pointed out, it's not sorting in ascending because when I do try and the data is mixed up afterwards.

[floris v]

I am confused that I made a typo in The Raven by // instead of /?

As I pointed out, it's not sorting in ascending because when I do try and the data is mixed up afterwards.

See sorted document in attachment.

[php111]

Thanks so much!

[floris v]

If your problem has been solved or your question has been answered, please edit the first post in this thread and add [Solved] to the title bar.

[Alex1]

You don't explain how the sorted result differs from what you expected.
Some more errors: C281 and C626 are formatted as text. With the default alignment it would easily be visible. E292 contains a 10th century date.

[php111]

You said C281 and C626 are not set to default alignment, correct? The entire C column is not set to default alignment but rather set to Left alignment. Are you saying the entire C column should be changed from Left to default alignment? And what about column B? Column B is set to default from the few I checked but I have not checked all of them. I corrected E292.

[floris v]

Left or right alignment won't affect the sorting, so that's a matter of what suits you best. Do whatever you like, it won't hurt. But there are a few exceptions in the document, like C920 and some more - that can't be a number, so maybe you should treat the entire column as text.
On no account should you think that when a line is not properly sorted, it's a flaw in Calc. Find the error in your data. Typo's, wrong cell formatting as string instead of number, all such things can mess up your sorting, but they are the user's mistakes, not those of Calc. Remember that computers will always do exactly what you tell them to do, and they only do what you want when what you tell them to do is exactly what you want them to do, and trust me, that is not as easy as you might think. I've been there.

[Lupp]

See also: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/data-is-a ... ort/130403