Hi Rich,
I believe that since they are definitely considered as strings they are
sorted as such,
how can you pretend that '#2 NOV' is considered as a number?
If you cannot define a rule in the structure of the data it is
impossible to sort, not only in sql, but in life!
IF we take for granted that values start from first or second position
('#') you can use something like this:
SELECT setname from sets order by CASE SUBSTRING(setname,1,1) WHEN '#' THEN
SUBSTRING(setname,2) ELSE setname END;
Cheers
Claudio
Richard Gagnon wrote:
Sorting a varchar field alphabetically with correct numerical order help
needed
I have a varchar 50 field that contains product names, which are typically
numerical, alphabetical and punctuation thrown in. I would like to have them
returned in some sort of order that is roughly alphabetical, but with the
numbers in numerical order. The basic Order By clause does not do it
correctly.
An example is:
SELECT setname FROM sets ORDER BY setname
Sample values of setname are:
658
#1 JCAL
011
#2 NOV
#11 NOV
#12 NOV
985
ABC
#123 NOV
The results I get are:
#1 JCAL
#11 NOV
#12 NOV
#123 NOV
#2 NOV <<<<<<<<< wrong
011
658
985
ABC
The results I want are:
#1 JCAL
#2 NOV <<<<<<<<< should be here
#11 NOV
#12 NOV
#123 NOV
011
658
985
ABC
In the above, the #2 JCAL should be second, otherwise, list is correct. I
could also live with the values beginning with # or any alpha character
coming after the numerical ones, but the 1, 11, 2, order is the issue.
Does anyone have any idea how to do this? I have been playing around with
various suggested ways, including casting and converting, but so far have
not been able to solve this. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Rich
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