@hankycheng0621
Let me explain you in more detail why your formula doesn't work in case it helps.
First,
According to
Sort Syntax - Power Apps - docs.microsoft.com
SortByColumns( Table, ColumnName1 [, SortOrder1, ColumnName2, SortOrder2, ... ] )
Table - Required. Table to sort.
ColumnName(s) - Required. The column names to sort on, as strings.
SortOrder(s) - Optional. SortOrder.Ascending or SortOrder.Descending. SortOrder.Ascending is the default. If multiple ColumnNames are supplied, all but the last column must include a SortOrder.
So why does "all but the last column" have to include a SortOrder anyway?
Because SortByColumns looks for
SortByColumns(source, column, order, [ column2, order2, column3, order3])
If you provide SortByColumns(source, column, column, order)
(which is what you did)
SortByColumns(
Filter(SiteLog,StartsWith(TicketNumber, TextSearchBox1.Text))
,"Title"
,"Name"
,If(SortDescending1, SortOrder.Descending, SortOrder.Ascending)
)
it will fail
because It will interpret "Name" as an "order'
Since "Name" is not an "order" that's why you get the error.
Whereas,
If you provide SortByColumns(source, column, order, column)
The last column not being followed by an order, that would be fine - that's why "all but the last column" requires an order if multiple columns are provided.
Makes sense?
The only thing that you might be wondering, is:
what's with that seemingly bizarre error?
The specified column 'ascending' does not exist or is an invalid sort column type
Actually, the error...makes sense!
A similar error might also show up instead of:
The specified column 'descending' does not exist or is an invalid sort column type
Here's why:
If you provide SortByColumns(source, column, column, order)
(which is what you did)
SortByColumns(
Filter(SiteLog,StartsWith(TicketNumber, TextSearchBox1.Text))
,"Title"
,"Name"
,If(SortDescending1, SortOrder.Descending, SortOrder.Ascending)
)
It's expecting you to provide SortByColumns(source, column, order, column)
but if you instead provide SortByColumns(source, column, column, order)
Notice carefully how not only is the 3rd argument given a column when it should be an order,
but more importantly, the 4th argument given is an 'order' when it should be a 'column'
So that means:
(now I'll use an example that will give the 'descending' version of the error rather than 'ascending', by just slight changing the 4th argument a little bit)
SortByColumns(
Filter(SiteLog,StartsWith(TicketNumber, TextSearchBox1.Text))
,"Title"
,"Name"
,If(SortDescending1, SortOrder.Ascending, SortOrder.Descending)
)
See how 'descending' is attempted to be interpreted as a 'column'
So of course, "the specified column 'descending' does not exist" - which makes sense now, right?
The specified column 'descending' does not exist or is an invalid sort column type
So why does the error say
"the specified column 'descending' does not exist or is an invalid sort column type"?
I think the choice of words has an interesting effect here, because of the fact that the function SortByColumns happens to be dealing with columns and also "sort order", so it might be difficult to quickly glance at this error and even understand what is going on, and it might also easily be confounded with the sort order and give the impression that the error is complaining about the sort order, when interestingly enough, the error is actually complaining about the column (i.e. the 4th argument being a sort order where there should be a column)!
Likely, invalid sort column type here might simply mean that if the column happened to exist, Power Apps suspects that the column might not be a valid type of column that could be used for sorting with SortByColumns.
In other words, Power Apps does not know for sure whether the column really does not exist, or whether it does exist but is just not a valid kind of column that could be used in SortByColumns - so as a result, maybe that is why this particular error is worded in this way.
For your case, the first part of the error is most important:
the specified column 'descending' does not exist or is an invalid sort column type
The error is ultimately caused, by 'ascending' (or 'descending') being fed into a column argument!
That's why it says
the specified column 'descending' does not exist
or
the specified column 'ascending' does not exist
So since "the specified column does not exist", then the first thing you should do is check if you have put a SortOrder where you should have instead put the name of a column (which is what went wrong here).
Make sure that if you provide more than one column or multiple columns to SortByColumns, that every column is followed by a sort order, so column, order, column, order, etc.... After that, you can only optionally remove only the very last sort order for the very last column (i.e. the very last argument) - but you can remove nothing else. Then it should work correctly.
You can also apply the exact same rule even for just one column. You can either provide the column and the order, or just the column, and the one and only column will be that last column.
So just make sure to always specify a sort order after every single column, and after you've done that, you can optionally decide if you want to take the very last sort order out, or leave it in. You can not take out anything else. If you make sure to do this, you would be less likely to face this specific kind of issue again.
Check if this helps as well @hankycheng0621
