But the default sort will put 10 before 2. If you don't want that you could
do

<xsl:sort select="td" data-type="number"/>
<xsl:sort select="td" data-type="text"/>

i.e. two apparently separate sort keys - if they aren't distinguishable as
numbers (both convert to NaN) then they will be sorted as strings.

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robby Pelssers [mailto:robby.pelssers@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 17 December 2009 15:53
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE:  sorting a table based on first column
> which contains both numbers and words
>
> Mm... damn.... I thought I needed to specify the data-type ;-(
>
> So I just came up with following solution:
>
>   <xsl:template match="table">
>     <table>
>       <xsl:variable name="numericRows"
> select="tr[string(number(td)) !='NaN']"/>
>       <xsl:variable name="alphabeticRows"
> select="tr[string(number(td))='NaN']"/>
>       <xsl:apply-templates select="$numericRows">
>         <xsl:sort select="td" data-type="number"/>
>       </xsl:apply-templates>
>       <xsl:apply-templates select="$alphabeticRows">
>         <xsl:sort select="td" data-type="text"/>
>       </xsl:apply-templates>
>     </table>
>   </xsl:template>
>
> But I also tested without specifying any data-type and you're
> right ...aaargh..
>
>   <xsl:template match="table">
>     <table>
>       <xsl:apply-templates select="tr">
>         <xsl:sort select="td"/>
>       </xsl:apply-templates>
>     </table>
>   </xsl:template>
>
> Thx,
> You made life a lot easier ;-)
>
> Robby
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Welch [mailto:andrew.j.welch@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:28 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re:  sorting a table based on first column
> which contains both numbers and words
>
> 2009/12/17 Robby Pelssers <robby.pelssers@xxxxxxxxx>:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have the use case where I need to sort a table based on
> it's first column.  This column can contain only numbers but
> also a mix of words and numbers. See example below.
> >
> > <table>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>5</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>3</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>Banana</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>Apple</td>
> >   </tr>
> > </table>
> >
> >
> > I want following output (first sorted numerical  and then
> > alphabetically)
> >
> > <table>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>3</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>5</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>Apple</td>
> >   </tr>
> >   <tr>
> >     <td>Banana</td>
> >   </tr>
> > </table>
> >
> > How can I accomplish this with xslt?
>
>
> The default sort will do that, read about xsl:sort
>
>
> --
> Andrew Welch
> http://andrewjwelch.com
> Kernow: http://kernowforsaxon.sf.net/