Advanced date sorting - 8.x
Overview
On plugin versions 6.x and higher, advanced date sorting for a column is available by specifying the Date (M) column type. An older alternative is available for all plugin versions, but more specifically 5.x and lower, see How to perform advanced date sorting using the D column type. The support for Date (M) type date sorting support is built in including multiple language support and does not require any additional server installation - this is the recommended type to use for date sorting.
How to know if the M column type is available on my Confluence
In the Macro browser, search for the Table Plus macro and find the Column types parameter. If Date (M) is listed in the help text, then it is available for use.
Acknowledgement
Advanced date sorting support with the Date (M) column type is provided using JavaScript with the help of the Moment.js library (open source, MIT license). A summary of the relevant parts of the moment.js documentation is repeated here.
Automatic support
By specifying just the Date (M) column type, the default date parsing recognizes a number of common date formats including those recognized by the browser specific JavaScript implementation. However, there may be browser specific inconsistencies. The following ISO-8601 formats are recognized consistently across browsers:
ISO-8601 Format |
|---|
YYYY-MM-DD |
YYYY-MM-DDTHH |
YYYY-MM-DD HH |
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm |
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss |
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSS |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss.SSS |
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss Z |
YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss Z |
User specified formats
By specifying a format string following the Date (M) column type, a specific date format can be handled. Construct the date format string from the set of format tokens.
Non-alphanumeric characters
Non-alphanumeric characters are ignored, so, for example, both of the following are treated the same using the MM-DD-YYYY format:
12-25-1995
12/25/1995Similarly, formats can be specified with or with non-alphanumeric separators. However, using separators helps with readability.
Format tokens
See the moment.js documentation for further information.
Token | Description |
|---|---|
M, MM | Month Number (1 - 12) |
MMM, MMMM | Month Name (In current language) |
D, DD | Day of month |
DDD, DDDD | Day of year |
d, dd, ddd, dddd | Day of week (NOTE: the input for these tokens is ignored, as there are 4-5 weeks in a month, and it would be impossible to get the day of the month based off the day of the week) |
YY | 2 digit year (if greater than 68 will return 1900's, otherwise 2000's) |
YYYY | 4 digit year |
a, A | AM/PM |
H, HH | 24 hour time |
h, hh | 12 hour time (use in conjunction with a or A) |
m, mm | Minutes |
s, ss | Seconds |
S | Deciseconds (1/10th of a second) |
SS | Centiseconds (1/100th of a second) |
SSS | Milliseconds (1/1000th of a second) |
Z, ZZ | Timezone offset as |
X | Unix timestamp |
Language support (i18n)
When date format contain national language words, the appropriate language needs to be indicated. English (US) is the default if nothing is specified. The language is specified by following the Date (M) with (lang indicator) prior to the format string.
Example: M(de)YYYY-MMM-DD for a German date like: 2013-Mrz-10
Example: M(fr) for a French date like Janv 10, 2013
Supported languages
The following is a list of languages supported by the Moment.js library. Click the link to get the details of the specific localization.
Need support? Create a request with our support team.