When showing data through table, can't sort in descending order because null > any numerical value

[kkas]

So I am displaying a ton of events with a very long table with tons of fields (input pkt, output pkt, input octet, output octet, duration...etc) to allow a user to quickly sort by whichever field they choose fit. The problem is when I try to sort through descending order, the null field is considered greater than any of the numerical values, so I have 10+ pages of straight null fields, but I don't want to exclude events with null values and I don't want to represent null fields with zero because that means two different things.
Is there a way to go about fixing the sorting issue caused by null?

My abbreviated search looks as follows

sourcetype=Alpha|table Username, IP_Address, Input_Octets|sort -Input_Octets

which outputs something like

Username    |   IP Address   |   Input_Octets
    derp        | 10.203....     | null  
\\\20 pages of null value in input_octet
    derp        | 10.203....     | 1321234
    derp        | 10.203....     | 123441
    derp        | 10.203....     | 0

[fdi01]

try like

 sourcetype=Alpha|eval Input_Octets=if(Input_Octets!="null",Input_Octets,-1)|table Username, IP_Address, Input_Octets|sort -Input_Octets

[ngatchasandra]

Hi kkas,

Try with

 sourcetype=Alpha|table Username, IP_Address, Input_Octets|sort -num(Input_Octets)

[ngatchasandra]

Try again with auto attribute. This will determine automatically how to sort the Input_Octets's values.

sourcetype=Alpha|table Username, IP_Address, Input_Octets|sort -auto(Input_Octets)

[kkas]

Cool, this worked for the most part. The one issue I have with this solution is when you try to click the different field tabs at the top to re-sort in different order, it goes back to being null>#. This conflicts with what I'm trying to do to allow the user to sort by clicking the field tabs for quick data analysis of different fields. I may just replace null with -1 and note the change in panel title.
Thanks for your input!

[ngatchasandra]

Do you want other solution?