How to sort xPage multiline editBox by field converter?

Question

I have multiline Edit Box on my page. I want a converter that converts entered text into a list (replaces e.g. comas with new line) then do @Unique and finally sort on save. Here is my code that doesn't work:

<xp:inputTextarea value="#{document1.Members}" id="inputMembers" multipleTrim="true" immediate="true">
<xp:this.multipleSeparator><![CDATA[#{javascript:"\n"}]]></xp:this.multipleSeparator>
<xp:this.converter>
    <xp:customConverter>
        <xp:this.getAsObject><![CDATA[#{javascript:@Unique(value).sort();}]]></xp:this.getAsObject>
        <xp:this.getAsString><![CDATA[#{javascript:@ReplaceSubString(value, ",", "\n");}]]></xp:this.getAsString>
    </xp:customConverter>
</xp:this.converter>

it does replace comas with new line but doesn't sort the list

Answer 1

Don't use the multipleSeparator property. Otherwise, getAsObject converter is executed for every entry (=line) separately. That's why sort doesn't work.

Implode the entries with "\n" instead when converting value for browser (getAsString) and explode multiple lines and comma separated values when getting back lines from browser (getAsObject) and sort the resulting array:

<xp:inputTextarea
    value="#{document1.Members}"
    id="inputMembers"
    rows="10">
    <xp:this.converter>
        <xp:customConverter>
            <xp:this.getAsObject><![CDATA[#{javascript:
                @Unique(@Trim(@Explode(value, ["\n", ","]))).sort()
            }]]></xp:this.getAsObject>
            <xp:this.getAsString><![CDATA[#{javascript:
                @Implode(value, "\n")
            }]]></xp:this.getAsString>
        </xp:customConverter>
    </xp:this.converter>
</xp:inputTextarea>