Herve,

> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> Is it possible and how ?

Given the relational rule of Atomicity (each discrete piece of
information shall have its own column or row), the solution is for you
to make "e-mail id" and "domain" seperate fields. Then you can sort:

 ORDER BY mailbox, domain

If this is a legacy database, and splitting the field is not an option
for you due to exisiting applications/policy, then you'll need to write
a custom sorting function:

CREATE FUNCTION email_sort (VARCHAR)
RETURNS CHAR(120) AS '
DECLARE
 email_addr ALIAS for $1;
 mail_box CHAR(60);
 mail_domain CHAR(60);
BEGIN
 mail_box := CAST(SUBSTR(email_addr, 1, (STRPOS(email_addr, ''@'', 1)
-1)) AS CHAR(60));
 mail_domain := CAST(SUBSTR(email_addr, (STRPOS(email_addr, ''@'', 1) +
1), 60) AS CHAR(60));
 RETURN mail_box || mail_domain;
END;'
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';

Then:

SELECT user_id, email, email_sort(email) as sortcol
FROM users
ORDER BY sortcol;

However, this solution has a number of problems for data integrity down
the line. If e-mail addresses are that important to your application, I
greatly encourage you to split the field.

-Josh Berkus

P.S. Roberto, please add the above to our function library.
______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________
                                       Josh Berkus
  Complete information technology      [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   and data management solutions       (415) 565-7293
  for law firms, small businesses        fax 621-2533
    and non-profit organizations.      San Francisco

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?

http://www.postgresql.org/search.mpl

Reply via email to