What exactly does itunes mean when it says "apply sort field"

Question

In iTunes when I select a track [or several tracks] and then Right click i see an option at the bottom of the resulting menu that offers to "apply sort field", when I select this option a sub menu comes up offering several fields for me to choose from, the options are, All matching fields, Same Album, Same Artist, Same Album Artist, Same Composer, Same Show. If I choose one of these options iTunes issues a warning that it's about to alter some of the files in my library. Can anyone explain exactly what is about to happen and how this is different from simply clicking any of the column headers in iTunes so it will sort the tracks on the screen?

Answer 1

The sort fields are used to control the order in which items are listed within their colums rather than which column the display is currently sorting on. iTunes automatically fills some of these in so an album or artist that begins with a, an or the is normally sorted as if the article wasn't there, e.g. so *The Beatles* get sorted under B and not T. In other cases you might decide that you want, for example *David Bowie* sorted as *Bowie, David*. If you set the Sort Artist, Sort Album Artist and Sort Composer (assuming this is one of his tracks) to *Bowie, David* on just one track, then right-click and chose *Apply sort file > All matching fields*, then iTunes will look at each track that has *David Bowie* in the Artist field and put *Bowie, David* in the Sort Artist field, also for each track that has *David Bowie* in the Album Artist field it will put *Bowie, David* in the Sort Album Artist field, and for each track that has *David Bowie* in the Composer field it will put *Bowie, David* in the Sort Composer field.
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