SQL Order String as Number

SQL order string as number

If possible you should change the data type of the column to a number if you only store numbers anyway.

If you can't do that then cast your column value to an integer explicitly with

select col from yourtable
order by cast(col as unsigned)

or implicitly for instance with a mathematical operation which forces a conversion to number

select col from yourtable
order by col + 0

BTW MySQL converts strings from left to right. Examples:

string value  |  integer value after conversion
--------------+--------------------------------
'1'           |  1
'ABC'         |  0   /* the string does not contain a number, so the result is 0 */
'123miles'    |  123 
'$123'        |  0   /* the left side of the string does not start with a number */

T-SQL ORDER BY number and letters mixed in string

I'm stealing my details from Here.

declare @t table(s varchar(25))
insert @t
select '122345684XT' union
select '23339034300-XT' union
select '423432424523242332X' union
 select '422222222111111111232' union
select '423842389034209XYZ' union
select 'ABC'

select 
    left(s,patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')-1 ) nbr 
   ,right(s,len(s)-patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')+1) alpha
from @t

which results in

122345684               XT
23339034300             -XT
422222222111111111232   
423432424523242332      X
423842389034209         XYZ
ABC

To use it in your context.

SELECT * 
FROM YourTable 
ORDER BY left(s,patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')-1 ), 
         right(s,len(s)-patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')+1)

Shown by

declare @t table(s varchar(25))
insert @t
select '12X' union
select '1X' union
select '2X' union
select '2Y' union
select '20' union
select '21'

SELECT * 
FROM @t
ORDER BY CAST(left(s,patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')-1 ) AS INT), 
         right(s,len(s)-patindex('%[^0-9]%',S+' ')+1)

Results In

1X
2X
2Y
12X
20
21

Sort string as number in sql server

Judicious use of REVERSE, CHARINDEX, and SUBSTRING, can get us what we want. I have used hopefully-explanatory columns names in my code below to illustrate what's going on.

Set up sample data:

DECLARE @Invoice TABLE (
    InvoiceNumber nvarchar(10)
);

INSERT @Invoice VALUES
('790711')
,('790709-1')
,('790709-11')
,('790709-21')
,('790709-212')
,('790709-2')

SELECT * FROM @Invoice

Sample data:

InvoiceNumber
-------------
790711
790709-1
790709-11
790709-21
790709-212
790709-2

And here's the code. I have a nagging feeling the final expressions could be simplified.

SELECT 
    InvoiceNumber
    ,REVERSE(InvoiceNumber) 
        AS Reversed
    ,CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)) 
        AS HyphenIndexWithinReversed
    ,SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber)) 
        AS ReversedWithoutAffix
    ,SUBSTRING(InvoiceNumber,1+LEN(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))),LEN(InvoiceNumber)) 
        AS AffixIncludingHyphen
    ,SUBSTRING(InvoiceNumber,2+LEN(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))),LEN(InvoiceNumber)) 
        AS AffixExcludingHyphen
    ,CAST(
        SUBSTRING(InvoiceNumber,2+LEN(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))),LEN(InvoiceNumber))
        AS int)  
        AS AffixAsInt
    ,REVERSE(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))) 
        AS WithoutAffix
FROM @Invoice
ORDER BY
    -- WithoutAffix
    REVERSE(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))) 
    -- AffixAsInt
    ,CAST(
        SUBSTRING(InvoiceNumber,2+LEN(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(InvoiceNumber),1+CHARINDEX('-',REVERSE(InvoiceNumber)),LEN(InvoiceNumber))),LEN(InvoiceNumber))
        AS int)

Output:

InvoiceNumber Reversed   HyphenIndexWithinReversed ReversedWithoutAffix AffixIncludingHyphen AffixExcludingHyphen AffixAsInt  WithoutAffix
------------- ---------- ------------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- ----------- ------------
790709-1      1-907097   2                         907097               -1                   1                    1           790709
790709-2      2-907097   2                         907097               -2                   2                    2           790709
790709-11     11-907097  3                         907097               -11                  11                   11          790709
790709-21     12-907097  3                         907097               -21                  21                   21          790709
790709-212    212-907097 4                         907097               -212                 212                  212         790709
790711        117097     0                         117097                                                         0           790711

Note that all you actually need is the ORDER BY clause, the rest is just to show my working, which goes like this:

• Reverse the string, find the hyphen, get the substring after the hyphen, reverse that part: This is the number without any affix
• The length of (the number without any affix) tells us how many characters to drop from the start in order to get the affix including the hyphen. Drop an additional character to get just the numeric part, and convert this to int. Fortunately we get a break from SQL Server in that this conversion gives zero for an empty string.
• Finally, having got these two pieces, we simple ORDER BY (the number without any affix) and then by (the numeric value of the affix). This is the final order we seek.

The code would be more concise if SQL Server allowed us to say SUBSTRING(value, start) to get the string starting at that point, but it doesn't, so we have to say SUBSTRING(value, start, LEN(value)) a lot.

SQL Order by string, numbers appear last

You can use regexp_like(). For the ascending sort:

order by (case when regexp_like(col, '^[0-9]+$') then 1 else 2 end) asc,
         col asc

ORDER BY number and letter in one string(Access - SQL)

This should cause numeric values up to 99 to be sorted first.

order by IIF( isnumeric( Mid(tbl_Projektphasen.Bezeichnung, 1, 1) ) or isnumeric( Mid(tbl_Projektphasen.Bezeichnung, 1, 2) ), 1, 2), tbl_Projektphasen.Bezeichnung

Explaination: If the first character or first two characters are numeric, give it an initial sorting value of 1 - otherwise, give it a sorting value of 2. Then sort by the actual field in full.

order by a string as number sql

It's doing a string (alpha) sort, and you actually want to be doing a numeric sort.

I'd change the order line from:

order by WeeksBand

to:

order by Cast(SubString(WeeksBand, 1, CASE WHEN CHARINDEX('-', WeeksBand) != 0 THEN CHARINDEX('-', WeeksBand) -1 ELSE LEN(WeeksBand) END) AS INT)

which will convert the first number into an integer value (not string) and then should order correctly.

SQL Server converting string to numeric and sorting

I think this is the problem with your data - not all are match your pattern.
You can check what is not valid using:

select column_name from table_name where ISNUMERIC(replace([column_name],'A','')) = 0

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