xsl sort not working as expected - sorting

Question

I've the below XML and using XSLT2.0
<A>
<BID>Pt.IV</BID>
<BID>Pt.III</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIA</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIB</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIC</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIID</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIE</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIF</BID>
<BID>Pt.IIIAA</BID>
<BID>s.2(1)</BID>
<BID>s.3</BID>
<BID>s.3(1)</BID>
<BID>s.3(2)</BID>
<BID>s.3A</BID>
<BID>s.3B</BID>
<BID>s.4</BID>
<BID>s.4(2)</BID>
<BID>s.4(5)</BID>
<BID>s.4(2A)</BID>
<BID>s.4(4A)</BID>
<BID>s.6(3)</BID>
<BID>s.7</BID>
<BID>s.7A</BID>
<BID>s.8</BID>
<BID>s.9</BID>
<BID>s.12</BID>
<BID>s.13</BID>
<BID>s.20A</BID>
<BID>s.20F</BID>
<BID>s.20O</BID>
<BID>s.20S</BID>
<BID>s.20T</BID>
<BID>s.20W</BID>
<BID>s.21</BID>
<BID>s.21(2)</BID>
<BID>s.21(3)</BID>
<BID>s.21(2A)</BID>
<BID>s.21(4B)</BID>
<BID>s.21(4C)</BID>
<BID>s.21(4D)</BID>
<BID>s.21B</BID>
<BID>s.22(1)</BID>
<BID>s.22(1)(b)</BID>
<BID>s.22(4)</BID>
<BID>s.23</BID>
<BID>s.25(1A)</BID>
<BID>s.27</BID>
<BID>s.28</BID>
<BID>s.31</BID>
<BID>s.20O(2)</BID>
<BID>s.20W(2)</BID>
<BID>s.21B(1)</BID>
<BID>s.21B(2)</BID>
<BID>s.21B(3)</BID>
</A>
here i'm trying to sort the values of BID using the below XSLT.
<xsl:template match="A">
<xsl:for-each select="BID">
<xsl:sort select="substring-after(.,'.')"/>
<table class="toa-entry">
<tbody>
<tr class="secondary-entry">
<td class="entry-name">
<xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
here the output that is get is as below.
But the expected is as below.
s2(1)
s3
s3(1)
s3(2)
s3A
s3B
s4
s4(2)
s4(5)
s4(2A)
s4(4A)
s6(3)
s7
s7A
s8
s9
s12
s13
s20A
s20F
s20O
s20O(2)
s20S
s20T
s20W
s20W(2)
s21
s21(2)
s21(3)
s21(2A)
here what's happening is, the sorting is working as first get all the numbers starts with 1, then 2, and so on.
where as i want it like in regular ascending order. 1,2,2a,3,3a and so on.
please let me know how i can get this output.
Here is working demo.
DEMO
Thanks

Answer 1

You should try something like:
XSLT 2.0
<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/A">
<table >
<xsl:for-each select="BID">
<xsl:sort select="substring-before(., '.')" data-type="text" order="ascending"/>
<xsl:sort select="replace(substring-before(substring-after(concat(., '('), '.'), '('),'[A-Z]', '')" data-type="number" order="ascending"/>
<xsl:sort select="replace(substring-before(substring-after(concat(., '('), '.'), '('),'[0-9]', '')" data-type="text" order="ascending"/>
<xsl:sort select="substring-after(., '(')" data-type="text" order="ascending"/>
<tr>
<td><xsl:value-of select="."/></td>
</tr>
</xsl:for-each>
</table>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
The (rendered) result, when applied to your example:
Pt.III
Pt.IIIA
Pt.IIIAA
Pt.IIIB
Pt.IIIC
Pt.IIID
Pt.IIIE
Pt.IIIF
Pt.IV
s.2(1)
s.3
s.3(1)
s.3(2)
s.3A
s.3B
s.4
s.4(2)
s.4(2A)
s.4(4A)
s.4(5)
s.6(3)
s.7
s.7A
s.8
s.9
s.12
s.13
s.20A
s.20F
s.20O
s.20O(2)
s.20S
s.20T
s.20W
s.20W(2)
s.21
s.21(2)
s.21(2A)
s.21(3)
s.21(4B)
s.21(4C)
s.21(4D)
s.21B
s.21B(1)
s.21B(2)
s.21B(3)
s.22(1)
s.22(1)(b)
s.22(4)
s.23
s.25(1A)
s.27
s.28
s.31

Answer 2

You can't utilize a text sorting algorithm on numeric data.
Even though you have stripped out the characters, your data values are still text values.
If you require numeric sorting you need to tell the parser the data type of the data, which you can do using the data-type attribute.
data-type text | number | qname
Optional. Specifies the data-type of the data to be sorted. Default is "text"
EDIT: Replace your regex with this: [^a-zA-Z0-9 -]
There is a limitation here because the regex strips all non-numeric characters out of the values. Therefore if the initial list is not already sorted correctly within the numeric factor, for example
s.21(4B)
s.21(4C)
s.21(4D)
then the sorting will ignore the alphabetic component of the values.

Answer 3

If you're using Saxon, there is a collation you can request that treats any sequence of digits in the sort key as a number, so s12 sorts after s9.
collation="http://saxon.sf.net/collation?alphanumeric=yes"
It won't handle roman numerals though: sorting "App IX" after "App VIII" remains a challenge!