I'm trying to sort a SQL table that contains a character-type field that contains mostly numbers. This field always contains either a number or a number followed by a character. Like '57' or '57a'.
I'd like to sort the table *numerically* on this field, not *alphabetically* on this field. That is, I'd like the table to be sorted like: 1 ... 2a ... 3 ... 4d ... NOT like: 1 ... 11 ... 111a ... 2a ... 22 ... See what I mean? This is a common problem, I think, when you sort an character type field that contains numbers. The sort comes out all wrong. It would be great if I could get rid of the characters, then I could make the field a pure integer and the sort would work great, but that's not possible (or easily possible.) A pseudo-code solution would be SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY INT(char-field), but unfortunately even MySql doesn't have such an INT() cast funtion. I'm asking this perl group, because I suspect that my only solution is to sort the result set in perl. Am I right about this??? Thanks. -- John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
