biblatex sorting by date

Question

I have written my own biblatex style for citing jurisdiction. I realized that the sorting in the bibliography is not chronological within the years. I addressed the date field to each bibliography item and it seems as if only the year is considered. Consulting the manual made me believe that there is presently no way to use the date field for sorting.

My question is if anyone has a suggestion for how to use the other sort fields to get the jurisdictions sorted in the correct order by hand?

I know that this is far away from a smart solution but I my thesis is due on monday in a week.

So I appreciate an suggestions.

Minimal example:

\listfiles   
\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article} 

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}   
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}   
\usepackage{textcomp} % Zusätzliche Symbole   
\usepackage{filecontents}

\usepackage[babel,german=quotes]{csquotes} %  
\usepackage[style=authortitle,backend=biber,sorting=nyt,date=short,]{biblatex} 


\DeclareFieldFormat[jurisdiction]{number}{\RN{#1}}  
\DeclareFieldFormat{institution}{#1}  
\DeclareFieldFormat{origdate}{#1}  
\newbibmacro*{usera}{  
  \iffieldundef{usera}  
    {}  
    {\printfield{usera}}}  

\newbibmacro*{institution}{%  
  \printlist{institution}%  
  \setunit*{\addspace}%  
  }

\newbibmacro*{number}{%  
  \iffieldundef{number}  
    {}%  
    {\printfield{number}}}  

\newbibmacro*{vom}{
   \printtext{v.}%
   \setunit*{\addspace}%
   }

\newbibmacro*{journaltitle}{  
 \iffieldundef{shortjournal}%  
    {\printfield{journaltitle}}%  
    {\printfield{shortjournal}}%  
  }

\newbibmacro*{note+pages}{%  
  \printfield{note}%  
  \setunit{\bibpagespunct}%  
  \printfield{pages}%  
  \newunit  
}

\newbibmacro*{origdate}{\printorigdate}

\DeclareBibliographyDriver{jurisdiction}{%  
  \usebibmacro{bibindex}%  
  \usebibmacro{begentry}%  
  \usebibmacro{institution}%  
  \usebibmacro{vom}%  
  \usebibmacro{date}%  
  \setunit{\labelnamepunct}\newblock  
  \usebibmacro{usera}  
  \newunit  
  \usebibmacro{journaltitle}  
  \setunit*{\addspace}  
  \usebibmacro{number}  
  \setunit{\addspace}  
  \usebibmacro{origdate}  
  \newunit  
  \usebibmacro{note+pages}  
  \setunit{\bibpagerefpunct}\newblock  
  \usebibmacro{pageref}%  
  \usebibmacro{finentry}}  




\bibliography{Literatur} % Einbinden der bibliographischen Daten. 

\begin{filecontents}{Literatur.bib}  
@jurisdiction{bmf1998,  
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},  
  date = {1998-03-25},  
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},  
  origdate = {1998},  
  number = {1},  
  usera = {},  
  pages = {268--344}  
}  

@jurisdiction{bmf2000a,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2000-03-29},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2000},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {462--463}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2000b,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2000-10-05},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2000},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {1383--1390}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2000c,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2000-07-18},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2000},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {1198}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2000d,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2000-02-25},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2000},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {372--375}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2001,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2001-06-07},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2001},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {367}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2004,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2004-11-26},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2004},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {1190--1191}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2004a,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2004-03-26},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2004},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {434--441}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2008,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2008-07-04},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2008},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {718--729}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2008,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2008-08-11},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2008},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {838--845}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2009,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2009-05-20},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2009},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {671--672}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2009a,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2009-03-26},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2009},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {514}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2009b,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2009-02-24},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2009},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {440--444}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2010,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2010-04-16},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2010},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {354--367}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2011,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2011-07-11},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2011},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {713--715}
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2011a,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2011-11-11},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2011},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {1314--1415},
}

@jurisdiction{bmf2011b,
  institution = {BMF-Schr.},
  date = {2011-12-08},
  shortjournal = {BStBl.},
  origdate = {2011},
  number = {1},
  usera = {},
  pages = {1279--1286}
}
\end{filecontents}

% ================================================================================================== 
% Beginn des eigentlichen Dokuments. 
\begin{document} 

\nocite{*}


\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 1

Edited by moewe (2018-07-14) to conform with the new names and sorting template definitions of biblatex >= v3.8. See the edit history for older versions.

Under any of the predefined sorting schemes, you can override the order of the bibliography using the presort and sortkey fields. The presort field is intended to group entries together in the bibliography. The sortkey field serves as a master sort key.

From the appendix the biblatex manual, you can see that the predefined sorting schemes establish chronology only with the year and volume fields. With biber as the backend you can use \DeclareSortingTemplate to also consider month and day. When data are not available, fallback values can be specified with \literal{<value>}. Otherwise "small" fallback values are used.

Here I've defined a new sorting scheme based on nyt from biblatex.def.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage[backend=biber,sorting=nymdt]{biblatex}

\DeclareSortingTemplate{nymdt}{
  \sort{
    \field{presort}
  }
  \sort[final]{
    \field{sortkey}
  }
  \sort{
    \field{sortname}
    \field{author}
    \field{editor}
    \field{translator}
    \field{sorttitle}
    \field{title}
  }
  \sort{
    \field{sortyear}
    \field{year}
  }
  \sort{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=2,padchar=0]{month}
    \literal{00}
  }
  \sort{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=2,padchar=0]{day}
    \literal{00}
  }
  \sort{
    \field{sorttitle}
  }
  \sort{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=4,padchar=0]{volume}
    \literal{0000}
  }
}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@Article{ref1,
  author = {Lastname, Firstname},
  title = {Article entry with presort field},
  journaltitle = {Journal},
  volume = {12},
  date = {2001-01/2001-02},
  pages = {92--122},
  presort = {A}}
@Book{ref2,
  author = {Lastname, Firstname},
  title = {A book entry with presort field},
  year = {2001},
  month = feb,
  day = {11},
  presort = {A}}
@Book{ref3,
  author = {Lastname, Firstname},
  title  = {A book entry with sortkey field},
  date = {2000-01-01},
  sortkey = {1}}
@article{itzhaki:phys,
  author = {Itzhaki, Nissan},
  volume = {54},
  number = {2},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. D},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.54.1557},
  year = {1996},
  month = {7},
  day = {15},
  title = {Black hole information versus locality},
  pages = {1557--1563}}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
\nocite{ref1,ref2,ref3}
\nocite{knuth:ct,knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b,itzhaki,itzhaki:phys}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Note the various ways dates are specified in the example. The date field follows the yyyy-mm-dd format, but you can omit -mm-dd or -dd. This field also takes date ranges separated by / (e.g. yyyy/yyyy, yyyy-mm-dd/yyyy-mm-dd, yyyy/). By default the beginning of ranges are used for sorting. You can also specify dates with the year, month and day fields. String values for month are accepted, but only in 3-letter abbreviations (jan, feb, mar, ...). These must be given without quotes or braces (e.g. month = jul).

You can override the chronological order somewhat with the sortyear field. In biblatex-examples.bib, the knuth:ct, knuth:ct:a and knuth:ct:b entries are given the sortyear values 1984-0, 1984-1 and 1986-1, respectively.

For descending dates, use the direction=descending option setting for \sort.

\DeclareSortingTemplate{ndymdt}{
  \sort{
    \field{presort}
  }
  \sort[final]{
    \field{sortkey}
  }
  \sort{
    \field{sortname}
    \field{author}
    \field{editor}
    \field{translator}
    \field{sorttitle}
    \field{title}
  }
  \sort[direction=descending]{
    \field{sortyear}
    \field{year}
    \literal{9999}
  }
  \sort[direction=descending]{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=2,padchar=0]{month}
    \literal{99}
  }
  \sort[direction=descending]{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=2,padchar=0]{day}
    \literal{99}
  }
  \sort{
    \field{sorttitle}
  }
  \sort[direction=descending]{
    \field[padside=left,padwidth=4,padchar=0]{volume}
    \literal{9999}
  }
}

Further details on \DeclareSortingTemplate can be found in the biblatex manual.