A report set I am working on requires the report(s) to be sorted at runtime based either on the user's last selected sort order and direction in a gridview, or, a sort field and direction selected from a report setup form.

Setting the field for the sort is not difficult, setting the direction can be.

Here's how I would handle both:

1. Create a parameter that will contain your option - Title, Author, etc.  Create another parameter for sort direction - Ascending or Descending.

If {?Sort_Direction} = 'Descending' then 'A'
else
  switch(
    {?Sort_Field} = 'Title', {table.title},
    {?Sort_Field} = 'Author', {table.author},
    {?Sort_Field} = 'blah', {table.blah},
    True, {table.default_sort_field})

Thanks for your reply.  This got me started in the right direction.  I Don't fully understand the line:

You can't specify the direction of a sort based on a parameter at runtime.  So, if you want to have the option of either ascending or descending based on a parameter, you have to create the sorts when you create the report and you have to have two of them.  You're parameter will, in effect, "turn on" one sort and "turn off" the other.  So, in your sort formulas, you first need to see if the parameter says to use the other sort and, if that's the case, provide a constant value so that no actual sorting occurs in the formula that's being turned off.  The "If {?Sort_Direction} = 'Descending' then 'A'" line in the formula effectively turns off the ascending sort when you want to sort descending.

In your command SQL you can do something like this (MS SQL Server syntax)

Select right((Replicate('0', 31) + Convert(varchar, TAMT, 2)), 31) as TAMTString, *
from...