fastest way to sort data

[Ypolat]

There are several ways to sort data in a table or graphic object. Which one's the fastest and why?

• Alphabetically
• By expression
• Numerically
• Set up an Inline Load load. Your contents must be in the desired order. Delete the table after its load. In the sort options of an object, clear all options there.

[Oleg_Troyansky]

The fastest way of sorting is "Load Order" - the last option in your list. In this case, essentially no sorting is necessary. Qlik will simply show your data items in the order they appear in the Symbols table.

All other choices require sorting one way or another. I don't have any hard data on their comparative performance, but intuitively I'd expect numeric sorting to be slightly faster than alphabetic sorting, and alphabetic sorting to be faster than sorting by expression.

Cheers,