Martijn Tonies wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > > Actually - WHO decides that this would be the right order:
> > >
> > > 1
> > > 11
> > > 20
> > > A
> > > AA
> > > BA
> > >
> > > ??
> > >
> > > What kind of order is this? This is a very custom order...
> >
> > I think "the right order" is what the user/programmer needs at a
> > certain point in the application, so it varies from case to case.
> >
> > Todd wants a numerical sorting in a char column that may also contain
> > non-numerical values. I'm sure he'll have his reasons, so that is
> > the right order for this query. Or maybe we should say: the ideal
> > ordering. Next question of course is: how to achieve it? But it seems
> > he's already done that too.
> >
> > BTW: it was even a little more complicated. I thought he wanted an
> > ordering like you showed above. But there may also be values like
> > '23B' and he wants them aligned between the real numerals:
> >
> > 1
> > 3
> > 3B
> > 10
> > 12
> > 12P9
> > 20
> > A
> > AA
>
> Sounds like writing a custom collation then :)
>
> This really is a weird order. Perhaps you can UDF the select
> and order by UDF(mycol) that returns a certain numerical value.

A UDF would be great, but you can't use a UDF in an ORDER BY statement.
So I had to create the additional column.

Todd