I have a line number column the users can edit and add letters. Line numbers are generated, incremented with each new line. They can do what they please.

I do two things. I increment by tens. I zero-fill, right justify to 3 digits: 010, 020, 030, etc. If the user wants to renumber, there is an easy gap.

Another trick is to make my own column to retain the sequence they added detail, so what ever they do retains that order. It is helpful to add drag and drop so they can drag rows in what ever order, then I resequence on my own column.

The column type is string.

Converting to integer and then sorting is not an option for us, as we have to expect numbers in the middle of the string (i.e.: "AAA-10-BB" ).

Could you give an example for the format?

In general we were hoping for a native solution within Powerbuilder, as tinkering with the sort function would probably wreck our performance, since it needs to be used across almost all application parts

Thanks anyway

Is column type a numerical or a string type?