Item1878: Numerical Sort in table columns broken

Priority:	CurrentState:	AppliesTo:	Component:	WaitingFor:
Urgent	Closed	Extension	TablePlugin	Main.KennethLavrsen

Trying to sort a table column containing just numbers resulted in a textual sorting in a 1.0.6 installation.

Digging into the code, I managed to restrict the problem to what follows:

• lib/Foswiki/Plugins/TablePlugin/Core.pm calls, in _convertToNumberAndDate, Foswiki::Time::parseTime with each row value as parameter
• in lib/Foswiki/Time.pm, parseTime($date) returns 0 for each input value, but the regex at line 162 matches 2-digits numbers as years, and when $date reaches 60, it passes the following code at line 198:

  198         return 0 if ( defined($year) && $year < 60 );
  

  resulting in parseTime returning -315619200 instead of 0, and therefore breaking the sorting of the column, because the previous column values figured as numbers, and this specific one as a date.

Forcing the regex at line 162 to match exactly 4 digits instead of 2 or more allow the column to be sorted numerically.

Frankly I don't understand how allowing a 2-digit numbrer to match as a date could allow numerical sort to work in any way, given how differentiating between numbers and dates is implemented, but I suspect my understanding to be fairly incomplete.

-- FulvioScapin - 02 Aug 2009

Good analysis

It was a recent fix from June that goofed up normal number sorting.

I am fixing this. I have fix. Just need to update unit test.

-- KennethLavrsen - 02 Sep 2009

Fix checked in. New plugin uploaded. Unit test follows after a good night of sleep.

-- KennethLavrsen - 02 Sep 2009