SQL - Sort order of string with numbers in

If it always start with 2 alpha characters, you can strip off those 2 character, convert to Int and sort.

select code
  from your_table 
 order by CONVERT(int,SUBSTRING(code,3,LEN(code)))

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You can do it by creating a function in SQL server that returns the numeric part, then sorts by that.  If you create the GetCodeValue function below, then you could sort your data like this:

SELECT  * FROM Parts ORDER BY dbo.GetCodeValue(code), code

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GetCodeValue](@Code nvarchar(100))
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @iCounter int
    DECLARE @iLen int
    DECLARE @iFound int
    DECLARE @iCodeValue int
    DECLARE @sChar nvarchar(1)

    SET @iLen = LEN(@Code)
    SET @iFound = 0
    SET @iCodeValue = 0

    IF @iLen > 0
    BEGIN
      SET @iCounter = @iLen
      WHILE @iFound = 0 AND @iCounter >= 1
      BEGIN
        SET @sChar = SUBSTRING(@Code, @iCounter, 1)

        IF ISNUMERIC(@sChar) = 1
          SET @iCounter = @iCounter - 1
        ELSE
          SET @iFound = 1
      END

      IF @iFound = 1
      BEGIN
        SET @iCodeValue = CAST(SUBSTRING(@Code, @iCounter + 1, @iLen - @iCounter) AS int)
      END
    END

    RETURN @iCodeValue
END

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You can sort by the first 2 alphanumeric characters first, then sort the reset as numbers.

SELECT *
FROM tablename
ORDER BY LEFT(fieldname,2), CAST(SUBSTRING(fieldname,3,1000) as int)

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Thanks for comments - issue is I need to sort by numeric then alpha then numeric and carn't be sure of exact number of characters between each.

judgeking: I think your solution is the best using a function - at present it strips off all characters before and including the last alpha character.

This would work if when it found a character it could replace with a 2 digit number.

I think I can work out the code to do this now and guess I could go case A = '01', B = '02' etc but is there a function to convert characters into there repespective numbers?.

Thanks - In the format that is required this works perfectly.

donhannam, replacing the alpha with numeric makes no sense at all, I'd like you to explain why you wanted that.

Judgeking

In this case all items that need to be grouped together are in the same format i.e. same number of digits. When we replace the alpha with numeric ends up in the right order i.e 9f99 is before 9f100 and 34ft24 is before 34ft120. I use an additional sort to get the parts in groups.

I guess you don't know much about SQL, no need to convert the alpha chars, SQL can sort by either or both.  My code and select statement above would have done exactly what you want in a more elegant and flexible way.  I think I deserved at least an assist on that, I spent quite a bit of time on it.  I don't answer questions just for fun, I need to get a certain amount per month or lose my membership.

judgeking:

Appoligies - I though you did both posts and allocated points to last one.

I probably would have allocated points between both if I had realised but I don't think I can go back and change now and actually the result I gave points to was the one that worked for me - note it did require conversion of the alpha characters to work properly.