Re: please need help: alpha numeric sorting

On Fri, 2002-08-02 at 10:00, Duncan Adams (DNS) wrote:
> is there no way around splitting the field.
> i have the same problem, i have ports that i would like to order by numeric.
> my main problem been that some ports are called a1 - a24 and then b1 - b24
> and other devices have ports 1a - 24a, 1b - 24b ect.

You don't need to split the field:

 junk=# select * from f order by t;
   t
-------
 12.1
 12.11
 12.2
(3 rows)

junk=# select * from f order by substr(t,1,strpos(t,'.')-1)::integer,
substr(t,strpos(t,'.')+1,999)::integer;
   t
-------
 12.1
 12.2
 12.11
(3 rows)

Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK
http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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