Sort

import { Aside } from ‘@astrojs/starlight/components’;

Sorting by a column

Click any column header to sort the data by that column in ascending order. Click the same header again to reverse the sort to descending. The active sort column is highlighted in blue with an arrow indicator (↑ or ↓).

The current sort is also shown in the toolbar: ColumnName ↑

Numeric vs text sort

Columnar automatically detects whether a column is numeric or text by sampling the first 100 rows:

Numeric columns — sorted by numeric value. 10 comes after 9, not between 1 and 2.
Text columns — sorted alphabetically (lexicographic order).

If a column is mostly numeric but has some non-numeric values (like blank cells or N/A), it will still be sorted numerically — non-numeric values sort to the bottom.

Sort performance

Sorting works by doing a single parallel pass through the file extracting the sort column, then sorting a key array using all CPU cores via Rayon. No data is moved — only the display order changes.

File size	Approximate sort time
Under 100 MB	Under 1 second
1 GB	2–5 seconds
14 GB	5–15 seconds

Resetting sort order

There is no explicit “reset sort” button yet. To return to the original file order, close and reopen the file.

Column stats after sorting

Sorting does not affect column statistics. Stats are always computed over the entire column regardless of sort order. See Column stats.