Title: Sorting german dates
Last modified: August 19, 2026

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# Sorting german dates

 *  Resolved [kds81](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kds81/)
 * (@kds81)
 * [2 weeks, 2 days ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-german-dates/)
 * Hello Tobias,
 * I have similar issues with date columns on two of my pages. There is each a table
   with two columns with German dates and I don’t get both date columns sorted correctly:
   
   [https://vectraturbo.de/fahrzeugregister/](https://vectraturbo.de/fahrzeugregister/)
   [https://vectra16v.com/i500register/](https://vectra16v.com/i500register/)
 * I tried these two variants based on other customer questions 6 solutions for 
   [https://vectraturbo.de/fahrzeugregister/](https://vectraturbo.de/fahrzeugregister/)
 * 0) import the base data as .CSV
 * 1) active “Advanced sorting plugin 1.2” +
   columnDefs: [ { type: “formatted-num”,
   targets: [ 1, 8 ] } ]=> both columns sorted not correctly date sorted
 * 2) page with additional configparameter “datatables_datetime=DD.MM.YYYY”
   => partly
   sorted-> 2nd column “EZL” not correctly date sorted=> 9th column “last change”
   correctly DE date sorted
 * So whats the correct way to get both columns sorted correctly?
 * Thanks in advance,
   Kai
 * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fsorting-german-dates%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US)
   to see the link]_

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [2 weeks, 2 days ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-german-dates/#post-18997530)
 * Hi [@kds81](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kds81/),
 * Thanks for your post, and sorry for the trouble!
 * My recommendation here is to go with approach 2) (the `datatables_datetime` parameter).
   As shown in your 9th column, this will (normally) work fine.
 * The reason why it’s not working for your 2nd column are the rows with `??.??.`
   for the day and month. The sorting algorithm basically expects numbers here (
   as it can’t know how to treat quotation marks), and when it doesn’t find them,
   it reverts back to string/text sorting.
 * Can you therefore maybe try replacing `??.??.` with e.g. `01.01.` or `31.12` (
   or some other date that makes sense, if you can’t find out the actual date)? 
   If you would like to keep the `??.??.`, it would be necessary to design a custom
   sorting algorithm (the “Advanced sorting plugins” Extension could serve as a 
   foundation for that) which then gets the additional knowledge about how to treat
   these `??.??.` rows.
 * Best wishes,
   Tobias
 *  Thread Starter [kds81](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kds81/)
 * (@kds81)
 * [2 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-german-dates/#post-18998125)
 * Hello Tobias,
 * thanks for your help.
   I removed the questionmarks and changed it to a dummy date.
 * Best Regards,
   Kai
 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [2 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-german-dates/#post-18998130)
 * Hi [@kds81](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kds81/),
 * no problem, you are very welcome! 🙂 Good to hear that this helped!
 * Best wishes,
   Tobias
 * P.S.: In case you haven’t, please [rate TablePress in the plugin directory](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/tablepress/reviews/#new-post).
   Thanks!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * Last activity: [2 weeks, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-german-dates/#post-18998130)
 * Status: resolved