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Sort by ASCII doesn't

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  Sort by ASCII doesn't Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> - 2012-12-31 06:04 -0800
    Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't jrijnb@xs4all.nl (Hans Rijnbout) - 2012-12-31 17:19 +0100
      Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> - 2012-12-31 08:41 -0800
    Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't HelpfulHarry@BusyWorking.com (Helpful Harry) - 2013-01-01 09:05 +1300
      Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> - 2012-12-31 14:43 -0800
        Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't HelpfulHarry@BusyWorking.com (Helpful Harry) - 2013-01-01 12:24 +1300
    Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Martin Τrautmann <t-usenet@gmx.net> - 2013-01-01 13:07 +0000
      Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> - 2013-01-01 06:44 -0800
        Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Jens Teich <info@jensteich.de> - 2013-01-01 23:28 +0100
        Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Martin Τrautmann <t-usenet@gmx.net> - 2013-01-03 16:22 +0000
          Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Martin Τrautmann <t-usenet@gmx.net> - 2013-01-05 20:13 +0000
            Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> - 2013-01-06 06:30 -0800
              Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Martin Τrautmann <t-usenet@gmx.net> - 2013-01-06 15:26 +0000
                Re: Sort by ASCII doesn't Jens Teich <info@jensteich.de> - 2013-01-06 18:26 +0100

#1111 — Sort by ASCII doesn't

Hello,

I have just come across some rather curious behaviour in FileMaker sorting.

I'm making a small database of keyboard commands in various different 
operating systems (since I'm losing track).

These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least 
two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).

So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols 
(which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer).

I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.

The upshot is that to sort properly, I've had to add a calculated sort 
key, which is a pain.

This is FileMaker 6 for Mac.  Any other suggestions?  And, I wonder, is 
this behaviour still present in later versions?

BTW, I'd also be interested in hearing of any other standard Mac fonts 
that have these characters.

Thanks.

Paul Magnussen

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#1112

Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> wrote:


> These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least
> two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
> codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
> 
> So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols
> (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer)
> 
> I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
> doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.

In the options for this field. which language did you choose for
sorting? In order to sort on the numerical code, you should choose
Unicode, or probably ASCII in older versions.

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#1113

Hans Rijnbout wrote:
> Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least
>> two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
>> codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
>>
>> So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols
>> (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer)
>>
>> I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
>> doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.
> 
> In the options for this field. which language did you choose for
> sorting? In order to sort on the numerical code, you should choose
> Unicode, or probably ASCII in older versions.

I chose ASCII.  Isn't that what I said?

Paul Magnussen

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#1114

In article <PPidndZKYLXPBnzNnZ2dnUVZ_sudnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
magiconinc@earthlink.net wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have just come across some rather curious behaviour in FileMaker sorting.
> 
> I'm making a small database of keyboard commands in various different 
> operating systems (since I'm losing track).
> 
> These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least 
> two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
> codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
> 
> So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols 
> (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer).
> 
> I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
> doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.
> 
> The upshot is that to sort properly, I've had to add a calculated sort 
> key, which is a pain.
> 
> This is FileMaker 6 for Mac.  Any other suggestions?  And, I wonder, is 
> this behaviour still present in later versions?
> 
> BTW, I'd also be interested in hearing of any other standard Mac fonts 
> that have these characters.

If you can see the charcters on the Keyboard Viewer, then you can just
type them using those keys. Neither symbol appears in my version of Mac OS
X's Charcoal nor Chicago.

These symbols are probably non-standard, so don't have proper ASCII values
to sort by, which is why FileMaker Pro is using the next character. I
don't have FileMaker 6, but it probably also ignores ASCII characters like
carriage returns in Text fields as well.

You may be able to get around this, you could use a second field - a
Calculation field that simply swaps the symbol back to the text version.
This field would then sort properly while still using the symbol version
to display / print.
i.e. Something like:

    ShortcutText    Calculation, Text Result, Unstored
       = Case (
             Left(ShortcutSymbol; 1) = "{paste in the Command symbol}";
                  "Cmd-" & Right(ShortcutSymbol; Length(ShortcutSymbol) - 1);
             Left(ShortcutSymbol; 1) = "{paste in the Control symbol}";
                  "Ctrl-" & Right(ShortcutSymbol; Length(ShortcutSymbol) - 1);
         

Helpful Harry  :o)

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#1115

Helpful Harry wrote:

> If you can see the charcters on the Keyboard Viewer, then you can just
> type them using those keys. Neither symbol appears in my version of Mac OS
> X's Charcoal nor Chicago.

Try again, holding down the Ctrl-key while you look at Keyboard Viewer. 
  You can't in fact type the characters (or at least, I can't) -- I 
think because the OS traps the Ctrl-key combination.  But you can copy 
and paste them from the Keyboard Viewer.

Paul Magnussen

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#1116

In article <LpSdnT8fGbqKiH_NnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d@earthlink.com>,
magiconinc@earthlink.net wrote:
> Helpful Harry wrote:
> > 
> > If you can see the charcters on the Keyboard Viewer, then you can just
> > type them using those keys. Neither symbol appears in my version of Mac OS
> > X's Charcoal nor Chicago.
> 
> Try again, holding down the Ctrl-key while you look at Keyboard Viewer. 
> You can't in fact type the characters (or at least, I can't) -- I 
> think because the OS traps the Ctrl-key combination.  But you can copy 
> and paste them from the Keyboard Viewer.

I'm only using Mac OS X 10.1 and they're definitely not there in KeyCaps
(which is basically the same thing) - there's almost nothing with Control
held down, just the numbers and some of the punctuation keys. I haven't
tried in Mac OS 9's version.

Anything visible in the KeyCaps / Keyboard Viewer should be typeable ...
but you're right, some applications may use the Ctrl key for other things
and not let the normal process through. It might work in some applications
and not others.

For data entry in FileMaker you could just use a radio button / tick box
Field to say which modifier keys need to be held down. That way you don't
need to keep inserting them manually anyway. It might even get around the
sorting issue.

I also forgot to suggest before to trying sorting by normal ordering
rather than ASCII.

Helpful Harry  :o)

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#1117

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 06:04:00 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
>  These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least 
>  two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
>  codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
> 
>  So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols 
>  (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer).

I guess you can't sort on anything outside the ASCII range. I'd suppose
that the real ASCII subset would be A-Z and 0-9 only, plus maybe some
extra characters such as .,-

It's quite straight forward to find out: Take any online table which
does show most characters, convert them to one character per line only,
import those to a filemaker table and sort.

>  I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
>  doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.

That's what you told it to do. A cmd-symbol is not part of ASCII.

Either use a calculation field that does replace the cmd-symbol ⌘ by the
text "cmd" and sort on the calculation field. Or do sort on "unicode"
which does recognize those symbols.

- Martin

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#1118

Martin Τrautmann wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 06:04:00 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
>>  These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least 
>>  two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
>>  codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
>>
>>  So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols 
>>  (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer).
> 
> I guess you can't sort on anything outside the ASCII range. I'd suppose
> that the real ASCII subset would be A-Z and 0-9 only, plus maybe some
> extra characters such as .,-

ASCII values run from 0 to 127:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII

<snip>

>>  I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
>>  doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.
> 
> That's what you told it to do. A cmd-symbol is not part of ASCII.

Certainly it's part of ASCII: it's numerical value is 17, which is XON. 
  FileMaker doesn't know it's being used to represent the splat symbol, 
after all.  Similarly the Ctrl symbol, which is Acknowledgment.  High 
non-alphanumeric characters sort fine.

> Either use a calculation field that does replace the cmd-symbol ⌘ by the
> text "cmd" and sort on the calculation field. Or do sort on "unicode"
> which does recognize those symbols.

Unicode has an entry for the Mac Command glyph?  Thanks, I didn't know 
that.  You don't happen to know its codepoint, do you?

Paul Magnussen

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#1122

Paul Magnussen <magiconinc@earthlink.net> writes:

>> Either use a calculation field that does replace the cmd-symbol ⌘ by the
>> text "cmd" and sort on the calculation field. Or do sort on "unicode"
>> which does recognize those symbols.
>
> Unicode has an entry for the Mac Command glyph?  Thanks, I didn't know
> that.  You don't happen to know its codepoint, do you?

U+2318

http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2318/index.htm

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#1124

On Tue, 01 Jan 2013 06:44:35 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
>  Martin Τrautmann wrote:
> > On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 06:04:00 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
> >>  These commands involve the Control key, and on a Mac there are at least 
> >>  two fonts (Chicago and Charcoal) that contain a symbol for this (at 
> >>  codepoint 6), and also one for the Command key (at 17).
> >>
> >>  So rather than write out "Ctrl-d" or "Cmd"-d , I'm using these symbols 
> >>  (which you can produce by using the Keyboard Viewer).
> > 
> > I guess you can't sort on anything outside the ASCII range. I'd suppose
> > that the real ASCII subset would be A-Z and 0-9 only, plus maybe some
> > extra characters such as .,-
> 
>  ASCII values run from 0 to 127:
> 
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII

True, but that's not FMP's definition of ASCII.

Just try what I told you and you'll find out what ASCII means to FMP.

>  <snip>
> 
> >>  I have the field specified to sort on ASCII; but never the less, it 
> >>  doesn't: it ignores the special character, and sorts on the next one.
> > 
> > That's what you told it to do. A cmd-symbol is not part of ASCII.
> 
>  Certainly it's part of ASCII: it's numerical value is 17, which is XON. 

That's not the same as long as FMP may take a different definition of
field contents, mapping ASCII characters to something different.

Most common example: ¶ - which could be carriage return, ASCII dec 12,
x0C, but is used very different within field contents, calculation
fields and data exports.

>    FileMaker doesn't know it's being used to represent the splat symbol, 
>  after all.  Similarly the Ctrl symbol, which is Acknowledgment.  High 
>  non-alphanumeric characters sort fine.

Yes - since FMP has a definition of its own what ASCII sort means.
Anything below ASCII 32 are control characters which have no real use
for "Text" fields.

- Martin
> 
> > Either use a calculation field that does replace the cmd-symbol ⌘ by the
> > text "cmd" and sort on the calculation field. Or do sort on "unicode"
> > which does recognize those symbols.
> 
>  Unicode has an entry for the Mac Command glyph?  Thanks, I didn't know 
>  that.  You don't happen to know its codepoint, do you?
> 
>  Paul Magnussen

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#1126

On Thu, 3 Jan 2013 16:22:56 +0000 (UTC), Martin Τrautmann wrote:
> >  ASCII values run from 0 to 127:
> > 
> >  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII
> 
>  True, but that's not FMP's definition of ASCII.
> 
>  Just try what I told you and you'll find out what ASCII means to FMP.

I have no more access to FMP6. Later versions do not offer "ASCII" sort,
but default sort only.

It's no surprise there that default sorting is
  numbers first: 0 to 9
  characters next: a-z, not differing upper and lower case

All other characters from ! (33) until ~ (126) are treated the same
and are not sorted at all. The space (32) is slightly special.

What's more surprising:
* most (all?) characters are shown within the field index. Thus indexing is
  is not limited to ASCII or text characters.

* Extended ASCII has lots of special definitions how it is sorted (see
  below)

I tried this with some sample data from a common ASCII table. I did not
bother to include every possible value from ASCII 0 to 31, although some
of those control sequences can be added to field contents. You may try
this on your own. Take care about those, too: decimal
 129, 141, 143, 144, 157

So here's the sample data:
 	32	Space
 	160	Non-breaking space
0	48	Zero
1	49	One
¹	185	Superscript one
½	189	Fraction one half
¼	188	Fraction one quarter
2	50	Two
²	178	Superscript two - squared
3	51	Three
³	179	Superscript three - cubed
¾	190	Fraction three quarters
4	52	Four
5	53	Five
6	54	Six
7	55	Seven
8	56	Eight
9	57	Nine
A	65	Uppercase A
a	97	Lowercase a
ª	170	Feminine ordinal indicator
Á	193	Latin capital letter A with acute
á	225	Latin small letter a with acute
À	192	Latin capital letter A with grave
à	224	Latin small letter a with grave
Â	194	Latin capital letter A with circumflex
â	226	Latin small letter a with circumflex
Å	197	Latin capital letter A with ring above
å	229	Latin small letter a with ring above
Ä	196	Latin capital letter A with diaeresis
ä	228	Latin small letter a with diaeresis
Ã	195	Latin capital letter A with tilde
ã	227	Latin small letter a with tilde
Æ	198	Latin capital letter AE
æ	230	Latin small letter ae
B	66	Uppercase B
b	98	Lowercase b
C	67	Uppercase C
c	99	Lowercase c
Ç	199	Latin capital letter C with cedilla
ç	231	Latin small letter c with cedilla
D	68	Uppercase D
d	100	Lowercase d
Ð	208	Latin capital letter ETH
ð	240	Latin small letter eth
E	69	Uppercase E
e	101	Lowercase e
É	201	Latin capital letter E with acute
é	233	Latin small letter e with acute
È	200	Latin capital letter E with grave
è	232	Latin small letter e with grave
Ê	202	Latin capital letter E with circumflex
ê	234	Latin small letter e with circumflex
Ë	203	Latin capital letter E with diaeresis
ë	235	Latin small letter e with diaeresis
F	70	Uppercase F
f	102	Lowercase f
ƒ	131	Latin small letter f with hook
G	71	Uppercase G
g	103	Lowercase g
H	72	Uppercase H
h	104	Lowercase h
I	73	Uppercase I
i	105	Lowercase i
Í	205	Latin capital letter I with acute
í	237	Latin small letter i with acute
Ì	204	Latin capital letter I with grave
ì	236	Latin small letter i with grave
Î	206	Latin capital letter I with circumflex
î	238	Latin small letter i with circumflex
Ï	207	Latin capital letter I with diaeresis
ï	239	Latin small letter i with diaeresis
J	74	Uppercase J
j	106	Lowercase j
K	75	Uppercase K
k	107	Lowercase k
L	76	Uppercase L
l	108	Lowercase l
M	77	Uppercase M
m	109	Lowercase m
N	78	Uppercase N
n	110	Lowercase n
Ñ	209	Latin capital letter N with tilde
ñ	241	Latin small letter n with tilde
O	79	Uppercase O
o	111	Lowercase o
º	186	Masculine ordinal indicator
Ó	211	Latin capital letter O with acute
ó	243	Latin small letter o with acute
Ò	210	Latin capital letter O with grave
ò	242	Latin small letter o with grave
Ô	212	Latin capital letter O with circumflex
ô	244	Latin small letter o with circumflex
Ö	214	Latin capital letter O with diaeresis
ö	246	Latin small letter o with diaeresis
Õ	213	Latin capital letter O with tilde
õ	245	Latin small letter o with tilde
Œ	140	Latin capital ligature OE
œ	156	Latin small ligature oe
Ø	216	Latin capital letter O with slash
ø	248	Latin small letter o with slash
P	80	Uppercase P
p	112	Lowercase p
Q	81	Uppercase Q
q	113	Lowercase q
R	82	Uppercase R
r	114	Lowercase r
S	83	Uppercase S
s	115	Lowercase s
Š	138	Latin capital letter S with caron
š	154	Latin small letter S with caron
ß	223	Latin small letter sharp s - ess-zed
T	84	Uppercase T
t	116	Lowercase t
U	85	Uppercase U
u	117	Lowercase u
Ú	218	Latin capital letter U with acute
ú	250	Latin small letter u with acute
Ù	217	Latin capital letter U with grave
ù	249	Latin small letter u with grave
Û	219	Latin capital letter U with circumflex
û	251	Latin small letter u with circumflex
Ü	220	Latin capital letter U with diaeresis
ü	252	Latin small letter u with diaeresis
V	86	Uppercase V
v	118	Lowercase v
W	87	Uppercase W
w	119	Lowercase w
X	88	Uppercase X
x	120	Lowercase x
Y	89	Uppercase Y
y	121	Lowercase y
Ý	221	Latin capital letter Y with acute
ý	253	Latin small letter y with acute
Ÿ	159	Latin capital letter Y with diaeresis
ÿ	255	Latin small letter y with diaeresis
Z	90	Uppercase Z
z	122	Lowercase z
Ž	142	Latin captial letter Z with caron
ž	158	Latin small letter z with caron
Þ	222	Latin capital letter THORN
þ	254	Latin small letter thorn
µ	181	Micro sign

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#1127

Martin Τrautmann wrote:

> I have no more access to FMP6. Later versions do not offer "ASCII" sort,
> but default sort only.

Erp!  That's very alarming.   So you can no longer separate upper case 
from lower, or sort special characters together.

That sucks.

Paul Magnussen

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#1128

On Sun, 06 Jan 2013 06:30:28 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
>  Martin Τrautmann wrote:
> 
> > I have no more access to FMP6. Later versions do not offer "ASCII" sort,
> > but default sort only.
> 
>  Erp!  That's very alarming.   So you can no longer separate upper case 
>  from lower, or sort special characters together.
> 
>  That sucks.

You may sort by unicode. That does differ upper and lower case.

- Martin

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#1129

Martin Τrautmann <t-usenet@gmx.net> writes:

> On Sun, 06 Jan 2013 06:30:28 -0800, Paul Magnussen wrote:
>>  Martin Τrautmann wrote:
>> 
>> > I have no more access to FMP6. Later versions do not offer "ASCII" sort,
>> > but default sort only.
>> 
>>  Erp!  That's very alarming.   So you can no longer separate upper case 
>>  from lower, or sort special characters together.
>> 
>>  That sucks.
>
> You may sort by unicode. That does differ upper and lower case.

And ASCII is a subset of unicode.

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