PyQt: How to sort QTableView columns(strings and numericals)

Question

The line `self.tableView.setSortingEnabled(True)` sorts a table view when clicking on the header, but it sorts incorrectly. That is, it thinks every column is a string (e.g. it sorts numbers like `1,11,12,2,22,3`, etc). How do I correct this? My code: ``` self.model = QtGui.QStandardItemModel() with open(file_name_temp, "rt") as fileInput: i = 1 for row in csv.reader(fileInput): item = QtGui.QStandardItem() for field in row: items = [ item.setData(field, QtCore.Qt.UserRole) ] print(items) self.model.appendRow(items) tab_table_view = QtGui.QWidget() self.Tab.insertTab(0, tab_table_view, self.File_Name) self.tableView = QtGui.QTableView(tab_table_view) self.tableView.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(0, 0, 721, 571)) self.model = QtGui.QStandardItemModel(self) self.tableView.setModel(self.model) colll = self.Datas.dtypes.index col_names = np.array(colll) col_names = np.insert(col_names, 0, self.Datas.index.name) self.model.setHorizontalHeaderLabels(col_names) self.tableView.hideRow(0) self.model…

Accepted Answer

You don't show how you are creating the items for the model, but presumably you are doing something like this:

```
item = QtGui.QStandardItem(str(value))
```

where `value` is a python numeric type.

To get numeric sorting, set the values like this instead:

```
item = QtGui.QStandardItem()
item.setData(value, QtCore.Qt.DisplayRole)
```

But note that this will also make the table automatically use spin-boxes for editing cells, which you may not want. So an alternative solution would be:

```
item = QtGui.QStandardItem(str(value))
item.setData(value, QtCore.Qt.UserRole)
...
model.setSortRole(QtCore.Qt.UserRole)
```

Finally, for fully customised sorting, you can also subclass `QStandardItem`:

```
class StandardItem(QtGui.QStandardItem):
    def __lt__(self, other):
        return int(self.text()) < int(other.text())

item = StandardItem(str(value))
```

UPDATE:

Here is a demo script that reads csv files into a table, automatically converting the fields into the correct data-type for sorting:

```
import sys, csv
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui

class Window(QtGui.QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super(Window, self).__init__()
        self.model = QtGui.QStandardItemModel(self)
        self.model.setSortRole(QtCore.Qt.UserRole)
        self.tableView = QtGui.QTableView()
        self.tableView.setSortingEnabled(True)
        self.tableView.setModel(self.model)
        self.button = QtGui.QPushButton('Open CSV', self)
        self.button.clicked.connect(self.handleButton)
        layout = QtGui.QVBoxLayout(self)
        layout.addWidget(self.tableView)
        layout.addWidget(self.button)

def handleButton(self):
        path = QtGui.QFileDialog.getOpenFileName(
            self, 'Open CSV', '', 'CSV files (*.csv *.txt)')
        if path:
            self.model.setRowCount(0)
            with open(path) as stream:
                reader = csv.reader(stream)
                next(reader, None)
                for row in reader:
                    items = []
                    for field in row:
                        item = QtGui.QStandardItem(field)
                        for numtype in (int, float):
                            try:
                                data = numtype(field)
                                break
                            except (ValueError, OverflowError):
                                pass
                        else:
                            print('Not a number: %r' % field)
                            data = field
                        item.setData(data, QtCore.Qt.UserRole)
                        items.append(item)
                    self.model.appendRow(items)

if __name__ == '__main__':

app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    window = Window()
    window.setGeometry(500, 150, 600, 400)
    window.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())
```

PyQt: How to sort QTableView columns(strings and numericals)

Solution

Problem