Please check that you do actually need this template before using it. Default date sorting does not work for spelled-out month–year or year–month combos and dates before the year 100, but it works in most other circumstances. For more information, see Help:Sorting § Date sorting problems.
Date table sorting is used to correctly sort and display dates in a sortable table (see Help:Sorting).
What it solves
Dates in their customary formats, if simply treated as alphanumeric text strings, sort in nonsensical ways:
1 September 1998 sorts alphanumerically before 5 March 1967, because 1 is less than 5;
February 5, 1922 sorts alphanumerically before January 3, 1922, because F comes before J.
Use of the YYYY-MM-DD format would solve this problem, but with minor exceptions that format is not used in articles (see WP:DATEFORMAT).
This template automatically attaches a "hidden key" to dates, causing them to sort correctly while still being displayed in one of the customary display formats such as February 5, 1922 or 5 Feb 1922.
Parameters
Dates
The year, month and day can either be entered separately or as a single date.
{{Date table sorting|year|month|day|BC}}
{{Date table sorting|date}}
1st parameter – Year (optional if month is given)
Positive number (1 to 999,999,999,999) represent years AD or BC (dependant on the fourth parameter).
Negative numbers (−1 to −999,999,999,999) represent years BC (without the fourth parameter).
Year numbers must not contain commas or other formatting.
2nd parameter – Month (optional if the day is not given either)
Full month name – e.g. February
Abbreviated month name – e.g. Feb
Month number – (either zero-padded or not) e.g. 2 or 02
3rd parameter – Day (optional)
Day number – (either zero-padded or not) e.g. 7 or 07
4th parameter – (optional)
May be BC, AD, BCE or CE
Used with a positive year number
1st parameter – the full date
By default YYYY-MM-DD format becomes month-day-year format and DD-MM-YYYY format becomes day-month-year while other formats remain in the order they are input.
Abbreviated months are accepted and are abbreviated in the output.
Capitalisation and comma mistakes are corrected.
A single number is interpreted as a year, otherwise the date is parsed by the module. The following formats are accepted:
YYYY-MM-DD
DD-MM-YYYY
DD Month YYYY
Month DD, YYYY
YYYY-MM
DD Month
Month DD
Month YYYY
YYYY
Month
Day and month numbers may be 1 or 2 digits, and year numbers may only be 3 or 4 digits. If you need to input a number less than 1000, use leading zeroes (e.g. "0700").
BC years can only be parsed if the date is only the year number.
If you need to include the day or month for BC years or years greater than 9999, you must use separate parameters for year, month and day.
Examples
input style
input code
hidden sort key
visible output
{{Date table sorting|year}}
{{dts|1893}}
1893
{{dts|-89}}
89 BC
{{dts|-10000}}
10,000 BC
{{dts|-1}}
1 BC
{{dts| 1}}
1 (Note that year 0 does not exist and gives error message)
Using format produces a format that depends on, but is not necessarily equal to the format of the supplied date. The format parameter can take nine values.
There are two ways of abbreviating the month name.
Directly input an abbreviated month name.
Use the abbr=on parameter. It can be placed before or after the date in the template. This allows one to abbreviate the month later if the table becomes too wide. It is easy to use find-and-replace in a text editor, or the wikitext editor, to replace {{Date table sorting| with {{Date table sorting|abbr=on|
Full date if second to fourth parameters are not specfied, otherwise year. Full date can be either in "YYYY-MM-DD", "DD-MM-YYYY", "DD Month YYYY", "Month DD, YYYY", "YYYY-MM", "DD Month", "Month DD", "Month YYYY" or "Month" format. Year is either a positive number or a negative number. If fourth parameter is not specified negative numbers are interpreted as years of BC era. Parameter is optional if the second parameter is specified.
Full or abbreviated month name or alternatively, a month number which can be zero-padded. Parameter is optional if the third parameter is not specified.
Example
February, Feb, 2 or 02
String
optional
Day
3
Day, optionally zero-padded
Example
7 or 07
Number
optional
Era
4
BC, AD, BCE or CE. Takes effect only if the first parameter is a positive number.
String
optional
Format
format
Controls the output format. Can be "dmy", "dm", "mdy", "md", "my", "d", "m", "y" or "hide".
String
optional
Abbreviation
abbr
Abbreviates the month name
ਮੂਲ ਰੂਪ
off
Example
on
String
optional
Additional sort key
addkey
Adds another sort key to resolve conflicts between rows with the same date
Example
3
Number
optional
Wrapping
nowrap
To turn off the suppression of word wraps, use the "off" parameter
ਮੂਲ ਰੂਪ
off
Example
off
ਬੂਲੀਅਨ (ਸੱਚ/ਝੂਠ ਕਿਸਮ)
optional
Notes
Sorting for incomplete dates
Whole months or years
A whole year or month (and year) is sorted according to its first day.
Missing years
If the year is not specified, the date will be sorted as if the year were the current year.
Blank dates
For no date input at all, the maximum possible sort key is used, so the entry will sort last.
The template is not capable of distinguishing Julian and Gregorian calendar dates. Also, it is not capable of taking a date in one calendar as input and outputting a date in the other calendar. Thus, to insure proper sorting, editors must either use one calendar for all dates, or pick a specific changeover date (for example, deciding that 4 October 1582 is Julian and all later dates are Gregorian); this would be done on an article-by article basis. Editors are also responsible for explaining to the reader whether the visible dates are Julian or Gregorian, if there is any possibility of confusion.
Linking
The template formerly linked dates automatically, with link=off used to suppress linking. In accordance with current guidelines, linking of dates is no longer supported and instances of link=off should be removed.
See also
{{sort}}, sorting by a specified key (also good for complicated numbers, e.g. scientific notation)
{{sortname}}, full name sorting (using "last name, first name" as default sort key)
{{tts}}, for sorting times in result tables of athletic events (only needed in certain cases - see template documentation)
