What I call yourfuncx() could probably be inline functions.

>Tore,
>21 fields?
>
>For now I do brute force:
>

>SELECT;
> CAST('' AS V(40)) AS vSort, CAST('' AS V(40)) AS vHelp, Cur2.cName AS vNR;
> FROM curSource AS Cur1 INTO CURSOR curHelp READWRITE
>
>INDEX ON vSort TAG _vSort ASCENDING
>
>LOCAL ARRAY laOcc(1,1), laLen(1,1)
>
>laOcc(1,1) = -1
>
>SELECT;
> MAX(OCCURS('.',vNR));
> FROM curHelp INTO ARRAY laOcc
>
>FOR lnloop1 = 0 TO laOcc(1,1)
> laLen(1,1) = 1
>
> SELECT;
>  MAX(LEN(GETWORDNUM(TRIM(vNR),lnloop1+1,'.')));
>  FROM curHelp  INTO ARRAY laLen
>
> REPLACE ALL;
>  vHelp WITH GETWORDNUM(TRIM(vNR),lnloop1+1,'.'),;
>  vSort WITH vSort+;
>  ICASE(EMPTY(vHelp),'',;
>  ISDIGIT(vHelp),PADL(vHelp,laLen(1,1),'0'),;
>  PADR(vHelp,laLen(1,1)))
>ENDFOR &&lnloop1
>

>
>but I dislike it a bit.
>
>Agnes
>
>>I suggest that you select into a cursor, something like this semicode

>>Select *,;
>>  somefunc1(yourfield) as sort1,;
>>  somefunc2(yourfield) as sort2,;
>>  somefunc3(yourfield) as sort3,;
>>  somefunc4(yourfield) as sort4;
>>  from yourtable into cursor yourcursor order by sort1,sort2,sort3,sort4

>>Your job will then be to work out the four somefunc() functions, but a combination of val(), getwordnum() and substr() should do the trick. But by doing it this way, you will be able to really see what's happening.
>>
>>
>>>>Still not clear I'm afraid. Taking '1.10.R.1' as an example: As I understand it you break it down to 4 fields (stop is always a seperator - never a decimal point) i.e:
>>>>1
>>>>10
>>>>R
>>>>1
>>>>For sorting purposes should the items that look like numbers be treated as numbers or character strings? Is there a maximum length to any field within a record or for the number of fields that a record can contain?
>>>>eg. Could '123.345678.ABC.234' occur?
>>>
>>>Hi Viv, Tore,
>>>
>>>>Still not clear I'm afraid.
>>>You are not the only one.
>>>
>>>I try to answer all at once here.
>>>
>>>The point separates the words. (It would be Decimal separator anyway because this is germany 1k=1.000; a tenth = 0,1)
>>>
>>>The lenght of a single word is limited by the length of the field that holds the value.
>>>
>>>The words are numbers only in the sense of sort. I think words starting with an alpha should go behind those starting with numbers.
>>>

>>>*sorted
>>>1.01
>>>1.2
>>>1.10.R.1
>>>1.200
>>>1.R
>>>

>>>the field is 40 chars, so worst case could be a single word of 40 chars or 21 words of a single char.
>>>
>>>Did I mention that I found a record with 10DP, eg mixed digits/alphas in a word? I hate this. I have no idea where to sort this in. This is out of the specs but what does the customer care about specs?
>>>
>>>
>>>Agnes