Subject Re: indexing with character numbers From Charlie <tm@tc.com> Date Sun, 26 Jan 2025 10:01:40 -0500 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started Thanks for your help guys. I tried this... i tried indexing on val(id)   and it didn't seem to work.  So I tried indexing on a field that was already numeric and it worked alone.  But when I did this... index on category+numeric field tag test  the numeric field was not in order. and have it work? Mervyn Bick Wrote: > On 2025/01/25 21:15, Charlie wrote: > > I am working on a new project.  There is a field which is character.  I want it to act as if it is a number by order.  instead of 723 coming before 98, I would like them in numerical order.  I am importing some of the data from a spreadsheet and it's easier if all rows are character from my experience. > > > > Would I be better off to just bite the bullet and go with a numeric field instead of character?  Is there some way to have a character to index like numbers? > > > > Thanks for any help! > > The values in character fields are left-justified in the field.  To be > able to order them in numerical order you need to left-pad the strings > with spaces i.e right-justify the values. > > use whatever exclusive > set index to > replace all charfld with str(val(charfld),10,0) > index on charfld tag tagname > use > > In the str() function use the actual width of the character field > instead of 10 used in the example. > > > > Mervyn. > > >