How are tag numbers sorted?

Ear Tags and other ID methods often contain non-numeric characters so CattleMax always stores this information as text.  Many software programs, including previous versions of CattleMax as well as Microsoft Excel & Microsoft Access, sort text information from left to right regardless of any numbers.   This left-to-right tag sorting presents problems for many ranchers since this technique does not sort animals sequentially.

CattleMax takes a more intelligent approach to sorting tags by sorting the left-most numeric part of the tag as a number and then applies the standard sort to the rest. For example, 112-94 would be sorted as 112 and thus would follow tag 111-94. In this example, CattleMax Online is sorting by the whole number prior to the " - " then sorting by the suffix. Same sorting system applies when a " / " is used rather than a " - ". Tags that start with a non-numeric character are automatically sorted to the bottom of the list.

Below is an example of the traditional and CattleMax Online ways of sorting.