Hi Ken: Many years ago I came up with an algorithm for sorting call numbers. In our collection, that is primarily LC numbers, but also other, including home-grown call numbers. Works fine for us about 99%+ of the time, and we use it in production. It currently exists in Perl. You can get it from http://homepages.wmich.edu/~zimmer/other_index.html Let me know if I can be of further help. (Current note: I will not be reading my email after Friday, 12/16, and will be back around the end of the first week in January.) Roy Zimmer----->OIT----->Library Stuff & Other things-----> Western Michigan University----->Kalamazoo, Michigan USA localsystem=P3 ICBM=(%Fatal:GPS error 51) RF=KB8UBA AF="Hey you!" QRM! [log in to unmask] you go, there you are! Ken Irwin wrote: > Hi folks, > > I've been using a Library-of-Congress sort routine for a few years, and > until now I have never used it on sufficiently large set of data to > notice that it doesn't really work. It does a great job of sorting by LC > class letters, but after that it gets a bit sketchy. Can someone help me > here? > > The sort uses the php "usort" command, with the sort routine defined in > the SortCall function (at the bottom of the page) > Here's the sort in action: > http://www6.wittenberg.edu/lib/sort.php > And here's the code: > http://www6.wittenberg.edu/lib/sort.txt > > I'm finding that LC call numbers with decimals in the first number seem > to be especially confusing, as in this supposedly sorted list: > > LB1027 .P383 1999 > LB1027.9 .L43 2004 > LB1028.24 .B75 1999 > LB1027.3 .S33 1999 > LB1027.9 .S26 2000 > LB1028.24 .P65 1999 > LB1027.3 .E44 2001 > LB1028 .A7 1990 > LB1027.25 E45 2001 > LB1027.3 .E45 1997 > LB1027.23 .B45 1997 > LB1027.23 .S556 1996 > LB1027.44 .M67 1994 > > Can anyone see why this isn't working? Alternately, does anyone have an > LC sort routine that they are really happy with? This one doesn't even > pretend to do a good job sorting on anything with more than one set of > cutters, but now I find it's even lamer than I thought. > > Help! > > Thanks > Ken > > -- > Ken Irwin > Reference Librarian > Thomas Library, Wittenberg University