jQuery Grid Plugin - jqGrid

We have numeric columns that allows empty values, which are represented by the empty string. When sorted locally, the empty values are equal to 0 and greater than negative numbers. For example, if we have a set of values: [3,0,-4,''] the values would be sorted as [3,0, '', -4]. This is unintuitive to our users. This happens for both "float" and "int" types.

I suggest the empty string (or any value that results in NaN when passed to parseFloat or parseInt) should be treated as Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY. This way non-numeric values are always considered less than numeric ones.

This patch should correct the issue (lines 459-468 in jquery.jqGrid.src.js version 4.5.4):

if (type === 'float' || type=== 'number' || type=== 'currency' || type=== 'numeric') {

  findSortKey = function($cell) {
    var key = parseFloat( String($cell).replace(_stripNum, ''));
    return isNaN(key) ? Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY : key;
  };
} else if (type==='int' || type==='integer') {
  findSortKey = function($cell) {
    return $cell ? parseFloat(String($cell).replace(_stripNum, '')) : Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY;
  };
}