[TIP] Sorting by ValueList and synchronized sorting

Mark Smith mark at maseurope.net
Tue Jun 17 18:42:06 EDT 2008


Richard, if you look at the 'valueList' function, it returns a number  
ie. the offset of a weekday name into the list of weekday names. It's  
this value that is being used to sort the list. It's like attaching a  
temporary value to each line and sorting by that.

If there were more than 9 weekdays, this example would have needed to  
specify numeric.

This is why you can sort by random(someBigNumber) to randomize a list  
- each line effectively gets a random number, and is sorted by it.

Best,

Mark

On 17 Jun 2008, at 22:49, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> Hugh Senior wrote:
>> Have you needed to sort lists by a value list or synchronize  
>> different lists, but thought it not easily do-able in Rev? You may  
>> find the following tips useful.
>> In a field, type some lines where the first word is a random day  
>> of the week, then...
>> on mouseUp
>>   sort lines of fld 1 by valueList(word 1 of each)
>> end mouseUp
>> function valueList what
>>   put "Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday"  
>> into tList
>>   return itemOffset(what,tList)
>> end valueList
>
> I've been looking at this for two days and I can't wrap my head  
> around it.
>
> My understanding of the sort command is that I can tell it to sort  
> by a particular chunk, and in which direction (ascending or  
> descending), and by what form of data (numeric or date or text).
>
> Indeed, the only examples in the docs are:
>
>    sort field "Output"
>    sort items of myInfo by word 2 of each -- sort by word 2 of the  
> line
>    sort lines of field thisField descending numeric by item x of each
>
> I've never before seen a sort where the sort specifier is a literal  
> value. :\
>
> If I simplify the above to move the function result inline, it  
> would look like:
>
>   sort lines of fld 1 by "Monday"
>
> What exactly does that do, and how does it do it?
> And where did you learn how do that?  I can't find anything in the  
> docs like that.
>
> TIA -
>
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin
>  Managing Editor, revJournal
>  _______________________________________________________
>  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com
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