I haven't been paying attention to this thread ... but it is sure sounding like this feature has gotten totally out of hand. Suggest reconsidering your design goals. > Or said otherwise, having the [+/-] colV sorting is a way to > avoid the question: > "we can sort the horizontal header, so why can't we sort the > vertical header just the same?"
I would turn that around, and ask why not remove *both* those things.
I do not think we want any client-side sorting in this feature at all, because the minute you have any such thing, you are going to have an absolutely never-ending stream of demands for more sorting features: multi column, numeric vs text, ASC vs DESC, locale-aware, etc etc etc. I'd rather reject the feature altogether than expect that psql is going to have to grow all of that.
I am thinking so without possibility to sort data on client side, this feature will be significantly limited. You cannot do server side sort for both dimensions. Working with 2d report when one dimension is unsorted is not friendly.
But the client side sorting can be limited to number's or C locale sorting. I don't think so full sort possibilities are necessary.
