Sometimes emdashes (—) do not work the way we would like them to in sortable tables. This template is designed to overcome that.

Consider the following example, which uses normal emdashes:

Name Number
AAA 234
BBB 129
CCC 813
DDD 149
EEE
FFF
GGG
HHH 297
182
III 012
JJJ 733
KKK
541
LLL 666
MMM 128
227
OOO 782
PPP 730

The name column sorts correctly, but the number column behaves in a peculiar way. This can be a particularly problematic issue in large, complex, sortable tables. Repeating the same table, but replacing the emdashes with {{sort dash}}, produces the following:

Name Number
AAA 234
BBB 129
CCC 813
DDD 149
EEE &
FFF &
GGG &
HHH 297
182
III 012
JJJ 733
KKK &
541
LLL 666
MMM 128
227
OOO 782
PPP 730