Forum Discussion
Brand new... why do numbers sort as alphas?
Anonymous answer is pretty much it. I simply start with a few basic cleansing steps, such as using Transform -> Trim, if I get the error you have mentioned, then do a replace values for null to 0.
Its also worth checking to make sure that this column doesn't contain any non-numeric values. Depending on the source will depend on the data reliability. For example, if you are getting the data from a program that only accepts numbers, then you will have more certainty that the data will be clean. Conversely, if the data comes from excel where users type in information, a user could easy have entered "Eight" rather than 8.
I'm sure Ross will have the complete answer for you; he's great.
First, are you sure they are whole numbers? Also, blanks may not be "blank" to the format selection.
I suggest creating a column and fill it from the other column using FORMAT to convert to a number and use code to replace BLANK with 0. If that gives you an error then there is something funky with the text format that I've not run into.
Cheers!
Anonymous answer is pretty much it. I simply start with a few basic cleansing steps, such as using Transform -> Trim, if I get the error you have mentioned, then do a replace values for null to 0.
Its also worth checking to make sure that this column doesn't contain any non-numeric values. Depending on the source will depend on the data reliability. For example, if you are getting the data from a program that only accepts numbers, then you will have more certainty that the data will be clean. Conversely, if the data comes from excel where users type in information, a user could easy have entered "Eight" rather than 8.