Note: This will result in blank-padding lines in the selection which do not extend to or past the right boundary of the column selection. If elastic tabstops are enabled and the number of tabs included in the column selection is different on different lines (for example, because some lines are short), results using Selected text only are unlikely to be as expected.
+| Sort direction | |
|---|---|
| Ascending | Smaller numbers, narrower text, or characters earlier in the collating sequence, come first. |
| Descending | Larger numbers, wider text, or characters later in the collating sequence, come first. |
| Sort type | |
|---|---|
| Ascending | Smaller numbers, or characters earlier in the collating sequence, come first. |
| Descending | Larger numbers, or characters later in the collating sequence, come first. |
| Binary | The raw byte values of the internal representations of the selected sort strings are used as sort keys. For most purposes, this matches what you would expect from a “case sensitive” sort, with the sort order dependent on the active code page. Unicode files sort by code point. |
| Locale | The sort order is defined by a Windows locale, as specified in the Locale sort details section. |
| Numeric | Sort strings are interpreted as numbers, as described in the Number formats section. Strings which can’t be interpreted as numbers sort first (whether the sort is ascending or descending). When Regular expression is selected, the regular expression is used to parse the selected text on each line; in all other cases, the text is interpreted as a sequence of tab-separated values. |
| Width | The visible width of the selected sort strings are used as keys. |
| Match case | When checked, the regular expression match is case sensitive; otherwise, the case of the text is ignored. |
|---|---|
| Specify keys using capture groups | When checked, the Keys box specifies the sort sequence in terms of capture groups. When unchecked, the text matched by the regular expression is used as the sort key. |
| Keys | A list of keys, separated by spaces, commas and/or semicolons, to be used for sorting. The major sort key is listed first, with subsequent keys having lower precedence. Each key is designated with a number. If Tabbed is selected, the number indicates a tab-separated field, numbered left to right counting from 1; 0 represents the entire selected text in the line. If Regular expression is selected, the number is the number of a capture group; 0 represents the entire match. -Each sort key number may be followed (without intervening spaces) by one of the letters a or d, and/or one of the letters b, l or n. These specify ascending, descending, binary, locale and numeric, overriding the selection in the Sort type box for the capture group or tab field to which they are appended. |