thedevguy wrote:

> Does Firebird contain a natural sort order algorithm of some kind? We have an alphanumeric field that we would like to sort in the following order:
>
> 1
> 10
> 100
> 1010
> 20
> 25
> 123aef
> aef123

Most natural sort algorithms would order these values like this:

1
10
20
25
100
123aef
1010
aef123

But what you seem to want is:
- return all pure numerals first, in lexicographical (not numerical) order;
- then return the rest, again lexicographically.

No, we don't have that ;-)

You could probably construct a select statement that returns a 0 in the first column if the value is a pure numeral, and a 1 if it isn't. Then return the value itself in the second column, and order by 1, 2. But that's only based on the ordering of the few values you have shown - I don't know if you want to order alpha characters as ABab, AaBb, or totally case-insensitive, for instance.


Paul Vinkenoog