Sort Operator

Overview

Order data with sort. The default sort order is descending.

| sort <field or expression> [asc|desc] [nulls first|nulls last][, ...]

Examples

Example data

let aws_alb = datatable [
  {"p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:45:34.863", "clientIp": "192.168.11.34", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1"},
  {"p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:59:04.058", "clientIp": "192.168.1.1", "elbStatusCode": 403, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1"},
  {"p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.7", "elbStatusCode": 404, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/2.0"},
  {"p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.1", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1"}
];

Sort by a single field

aws_alb
| sort p_event_time

EVENT
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:59:04.058", "clientIp": "192.168.1.1", "elbStatusCode": 403, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:45:34.863", "clientIp": "192.168.11.34", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.1", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.7", "elbStatusCode": 404, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/2.0" }

Sort by multiple fields

You can specify multiple fields to sort by, each with a different sort order

aws_alb
| sort p_event_time asc, clientIp desc

EVENT
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.7", "elbStatusCode": 404, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/2.0" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:36:09.017", "clientIp": "10.168.22.1", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:45:34.863", "clientIp": "192.168.11.34", "elbStatusCode": 200, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }
{ "p_event_time": "2023-09-16 05:59:04.058", "clientIp": "192.168.1.1", "elbStatusCode": 403, "requestHttpVersion": "HTTP/1.1" }

Sort by alert severity

When querying alerts and sorting results by severity, it's common to intend to sort in true severity order (i.e., CRITICAL > HIGH > MEDIUM > LOW > INFO, or the reverse). However, if you simply use a clause like | sort severity, severity sorting will be performed alphabetically.

To sort in true severity order, leverage the case function like the following:

| extend severity_sort_key = case(severity == "CRITICAL", 5, severity == "HIGH", 4, severity == "MEDIUM", 3, severity == "LOW", 2, severity == "INFO", 1)
| sort severity_sort_key