Hello dgh1,

the usage of parameter sord is not a bug. I suppose that sord should be read as “sort direction”. The parameter can be either asc or desc.

Parameter sord will be used together with sidx parameter which I read as “sort index”. Sort index is the name from the 'index' column of the corresponding column by which the grid should be sorted. If jqGrid column has no 'index' property defined, the 'name' property from colModel column will be used.

Next parameter nd I read as “new date”. It contains timestamp (new Date().getTime()) and are used to prevent caching of AJAX requests in Internet Explorer. It has close meaning to cache:false parameter of jQuery.ajax. In my opinion the parameter should be added only for HTTP GET requests, but it is added in case of filling of jqGrid per POST also. If you include prmNames: { nd:null} then the nd parameter will be not added (read this for more information).

Parameter _search is very easy. I suppose it was introduced for server technologies like PHP or ASP where you query server parameters manually. If _search is true, then other parameters searchField, searchOper and searchString or filters will be used and you should query there. In many cases you can query directly the parameters searchField or filters and ignore _search.

Best regards
Oleg