Chart sort order not working with a function of a function

[ZacharyR]

Hi,

I have a bunch of dates in this format MM/DD/YYYY. I created a function called @DateMonth and used 'Month (x)' to get the month only - the values are returned as a number, that is 1 is January, 2 is February, etc. When I chart this out on the X axis, the months appear in perfect ascending order - 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.

But I need the actual month name, instead of the numeric equivalent. So I created a new function called @MonthName and used the 'MonthName (x)' function to convert the numeric value to the actual month text.

It looks like this:

MonthName ({@DateMonth})

But now when I chart this out using the @MonthName function on the X axis, the order of the months is random - even though I specifically say to sort in 'ascending order'.

CR is ignoring my sort request when I use @MonthName - which is essentially a function of a function.

Is there a workaround for this?

thanks!

 

[kenhamady]

My guess is that the months are NOT in random order. If you look closely I bet they are in ascending ALPHABETICAL order. In other words April is first because it starts with A and September is probably last. These are now words rather than dates so they are sorted as such.

What you need is to use Specified Order instead of Ascending order. Then you select the months in the correct order.

Also, if you have up to 12 months of data in the report you could just use the date field itself as the chart field, and in the chart options select "For each month". That should give you the month names in the correct order.

Ken Hamady, On-site Custom Crystal Reports Training & Consulting
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