xsl:sort on date

[csbdeady]

Hi

If I have in my xml file two records with:

<date>03/03/04</date>

in one, and:

<date>04/02/04</date>

in the other (format is: dd/mm/yy)

then

<xsl:sort select="date" order="ascending" />

will sort them so that the 03/03/04 record comes before the 04/02/04 record.

However obviously (to a human) this should be the other way around, based on the dd/mm/yy format.

How do I make this obvious in the XSLT xsl:sort transformation I am using?

Many thanks
-Colin

 

[csbdeady]

Ahah sorted it - I do like when I post a question and then an hour later solve my own problem

Still worth posting though so others don't have to waste that hour.

The solution is to use the following xml:sort :

<xsl:sort order="ascending" select="concat(substring(date, 7,2),substring(date, 4,2),substring(date, 1,2))" data-type="numeric" />

This creates a numeric representation of the date:

040303

and

040204

Both as yymmdd, which can then be sorted numerically as per the xsl:sort above.

 

[chiph]

Or, use the correct date format for XML: ISO-8601
[tab]yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss

Chip H.


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