I don't think the fact that it's non-default is the issue. My off the cuff guess is that it has to do with whitespace significance with this particular collation. You could do some small scale experiments with collations to see if you can arrive at one that yields the desired result. I'll file an RFE on controlling empty in sort order, meanwhile.
Sent from my iPhone On Feb 21, 2012, at 8:19 AM, "Murray, Gregory" <[email protected]> wrote: > Colleen, > > Thanks for the info. It looks like the problem is indeed using a non-default > collation. Here's a (real but greatly simplified for illustration) example > document: > > <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> > <doc xmlns="http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/ia";> > <metadata> > <id>apostlescreedlor00geeg</id> > <name>Geegby, W. B.</name> > <title>The Apostles' Creed and the Lord's prayer in the Kru dialect</title> > <date>1840</date> > <language code="eng">English</language> > <class>Old Testament</class> > </metadata> > </doc> > > I have range element indexes on date (gYear), language (string with default > collation), and name (string with collation > http://marklogic.com/collation//AS/T0020). > > In the <options> to search:search(), my (again, real but simplified for > illustration) sort operator looks like this: > > <operator name="sort"> > <state name="name"> > <sort-order type="xs:string" > collation="http://marklogic.com/collation//AS/T0020";> > <element ns="http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/ia"; name="name"/> > </sort-order> > </state> > <state name="date"> > <sort-order type="xs:gYear"> > <element ns="http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/ia"; name="date"/> > </sort-order> > </state> > <state name="language"> > <sort-order type="xs:string"> > <element ns="http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/ia"; name="language"/> > </sort-order> > </state> > </operator> > > If I sort by date (if the qtext passed to search:search() includes > "sort:date") then I get empty last (documents with no <date> element occur > last in the search results), as I would expect and prefer. Similarly, if I > sort by language I get empty last. But if I sort by name, I get empty first. > > Any way around this other than switching to the default collation for <name>? > > Many thanks, > Greg > > > On Feb 20, 2012, at 7:47 PM, Colleen Whitney wrote: > >> Hi Greg, >> >> The Search API doesn't have support as yet for specifying "empty least" or >> "empty greatest" on sorting. >> >> You can specify a *direction* as an attribute on the <sort-order> element >> (direction="ascending" or direction="descending"). When descending, the >> server defaults to empty least, and when ascending it defaults to empty >> greatest, so I think it *should* actually default to them coming out last. >> But collation is important here, and it's possible that the collation you're >> using here could be involved. If you have a very small set of test "name" >> elements you can share, along with how they're sorting, it might be helpful >> in understanding what you're seeing. >> >> --Colleen >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: [email protected] >> [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Murray, Gregory >> [[email protected]] >> Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 10:37 AM >> To: MarkLogic Developer Discussion >> Subject: [MarkLogic Dev General] Search API results: sorting empty last >> >> When using the Search API and using a sort operator such as this: >> >> <search:operator name="sort"> >> <search:state name="name"> >> <search:sort-order type="xs:string" >> collation="http://marklogic.com/collation//AS/T0020";> >> <search:element ns="http://example.com/ns"; name="name"/> >> </search:sort-order> >> </search:state> >> <!-- ... --> >> </search:operator> >> >> is there a way to specify that documents with a missing or empty <name> >> element should occur *last* in the sorted search results? It appears that >> empty values occur at the top of the search results by default. >> >> Thanks, >> Greg >> >> _______________________________________________ >> General mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://developer.marklogic.com/mailman/listinfo/general >> _______________________________________________ >> General mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://developer.marklogic.com/mailman/listinfo/general > > _______________________________________________ > General mailing list > [email protected] > http://developer.marklogic.com/mailman/listinfo/general _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://developer.marklogic.com/mailman/listinfo/general
