Re: [O] Agenda search: setting sort-order

[Nathan Neff]

I had a look at org-agenda.el, and took a first stab at "coding" :)

I fixed the sorting problem when using agenda-search-view, and

I have a DIFF/patch at the bottom of this e-mail [1] that provided the fix.

Would this be of interest to the org-mode project?  This code fixes the problem,

but it is duplicated in the function org-agenda-get-todos, and seems redundant, 

therefore a more "long term" fix would probably not resemble the minor patch

below.  Also, I have no experience with lisp, nor the org-mode codebase :-O

Here's steps I used to find the problem.  Feel free to skip to [1]

for the DIFF/patch.

I found that if I perform an agenda-search, and change

the sort method to priority or tag, then the agenda items

matching my search are indeed sorted in the correct order.

This lead me to think to inspect the code that is performing

the time/date comparison of entries found by the org-search-view.

I put a debug-watch on the function org-cmp-ts and set

the sort method to "ts-down".  I ran an agenda search, and I 

noticed that none of the entries matching my search had a 'ts-date

property.

I ran another agenda search (by tag) and noticed that the entries

being compared in the org-cmp-ts function did indeed have a 'ts-date

property.

So, I came to the conclusion that org-search-view does not give matching

entries a 'ts-date property.  Also, the 'type property of these entries needed

the ts-date-type appended to their 'type property (e.g. "search timestamp"

instead of just "search").  Otherwise, the org-cmp-ts function would think

the two entries it was comparing did not have matching timestamp types

and simply return nil, indicating both entries were "equal" in sort order.

Thanks,

--Nate

[1] 

I ran a DIFF of org-agenda.el (mine) against org-agenda.el (9.1.13) and

here's the DIFF. 

diff --git a/lisp/org-agenda.el b/lisp/org-agenda.el

index 322480c..5af6743 100644

--- a/lisp/org-agenda.el

+++ b/lisp/org-agenda.el

@@ -4567,6 +4567,9 @@ is active."

                        (goto-char beg)

                        (setq marker (org-agenda-new-marker (point))

                              category (org-get-category)

+                  ts-date-pair (org-agenda-entry-get-agenda-timestamp (point))

+                  ts-date (car ts-date-pair)

+                  ts-date-type (cdr ts-date-pair)

                              level (make-string (org-reduced-level (org-outline-level)) ? )

                              inherited-tags

                              (or (eq org-agenda-show-inherited-tags 'always)

@@ -4584,10 +4587,12 @@ is active."

                        (org-add-props txt props

                          'org-marker marker 'org-hd-marker marker

                          'org-todo-regexp org-todo-regexp

+              'ts-date ts-date

+              'ts-date-type ts-date-type

                          'level level

                          'org-complex-heading-regexp org-complex-heading-regexp

                          'priority 1000

-                         'type "search")

+              'type (concat "search" ts-date-type))

                        (push txt ee)

                        (goto-char (1- end))))))))))

        (setq rtn (nreverse ee))

On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 3:07 PM, Nathan Neff <address@hidden> wrote:

Bumping this question to see if anyone has a workaround -

I recently have been wishing to search for keywords and order

the results in reverse timestamp order.  

This sounds like a fairly useful and common feature, so I think 

there must be something I'm configuring incorrectly.  I am able 

to reproduce the problem using a fairly clean Emacs install (a 

VM with no customizations).

Thanks,

--Nate

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 4:57 PM, Nathan Neff <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm using org-mode version 9.1.13 from elpa, and

have a custom agenda command:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands

   '(

     ("z" search "" 

       ((org-agenda-sorting-strategy '(timestamp-up))))))

And I have an org-file with this data:

* TODO [#C] Test1                                                       :foo:

<2018-04-24 Tue 19:30>

* TODO [#A] Test2                                                       :foo:

<2018-05-24 Thu 19:30>

* TODO [#B] Test3                                                       :foo:

<2017-12-24 Sun 23:33>

The data is not sorted according to timestamp.  I cannot seem to 

get the data sorted in any fashion when using the "search" agenda mode.

However, if I change "search" to "tags" and search for the "foo" tag, then

it appears that the sorting works.  I've tested it with priority and timestamp

using the above data and it sorts the items correctly.

Why is my "search" agenda command ignoring the org-agenda-sorting-strategy?

Thanks,

--Nate