Reference > Functions reference > Text functions > SortValues
 
SortValues
Purpose 
Sorts a list of values based on the specified data type and locale.
Format 
SortValues(values{;datatype;locale})
Parameters 
values - any text expression or field that’s a list of values separated by carriage returns.
datatype - a number that specifies the type of data to be sorted (see below). A positive value sorts in ascending order; a negative value sorts in descending order.
locale - the name of the locale whose sorting rules are to be followed (see below).
Parameters in braces { } are optional.
Data type returned 
text
Originated in 
FileMaker Pro 16.0
Description 
Each returned value ends with a carriage return, allowing lists to be easily concatenated. See LeftValues function for more information on working with lists of values.
For the datatype parameter, use one of the following values so this function can sort values appropriately. If you use no value or an unrecognized value, values are sorted as text in ascending order.
 
datatype
Sorts values as
1
Text
2
Number
3
Date
4
Time
5
Timestamp
For the locale parameter, use one of the following names to specify which locale’s sorting rules are to be used. Sort order is determined by locale in the same manner as for sorting records (see Choosing a language for indexing or sorting). Specifying a blank or no value sorts based on the locale of the file that contains the calculation’s relationship graph; an unrecognized value causes this function to return "?".
 
Supported names for locale parameter
Arabic
English
Hindi
Norwegian
Spanish_Traditional
Bengali
Estonian
Hungarian
Panjabi
Swedish
Bulgarian
Finnish
Icelandic
Persian
Swedish_Custom
Catalan
Finnish_Custom
Italian
Polish
Tamil
Catalog
French
Japanese
Portuguese
Telugu
Chinese
German
Kannada
Romanian
Thai
Chinese_Stroke
German_Dictionary
Korean
Russian
Turkish
Croatian
Greek
Latvian
Serbian
Ukrainian
Czech
Greek_Mixed
Lithuanian
Slovak
Unicode_Raw
Danish
Gujarati
Malayalam
Slovenian
Unicode_Standard
Dutch
Hebrew
Marathi
Spanish
Vietnamese
Notes 
This function is not supported in runtime solutions and returns "?".
Example 1 
SortValues ( "34¶600¶18¶29" ; -2 } ) returns
600¶34¶29¶18¶
Example 2 
SortValues ( Product::Colors ) returns values sorted in the default order (as text in ascending alphabetical order) in a file in which the locale is English:
blue¶green¶GREEN¶red¶yellow¶
when the Product::Colors field contains red¶green¶blue¶GREEN¶yellow¶.
Related topics 
Functions reference (category list)
Functions reference (alphabetical list)
About formulas
About functions
Defining calculation fields
Using operators in formulas
UniqueValues function